The Absolute
by triumphant return
Summary: Baron Stilinski's duty as spymaster can really suck. Like when Lord McCall leads an Argent rebellion, and Stiles is on the run with King Derek Hale while trying to preserve loyalty, love and life in war. (Sterek slowbuild plot medieval AU ) "My King, Scott said it would either be your death or his that would end this." Derek took him by the shoulders. "You knew that all along."


Beacon Hills did not look like the home of a king. Its hinterlands were crammed with refugees, washed-up peasants and merchants without wares, all drawn to the half-burnt husk of a palace where Derek Hale, the War King, held court.

It was five years after Derek had secured the throne, and there were still beggars in the streets. They spread rumors in disillusioned grumbles. Duke Peter Hale had been too strong a lord to be defeated by his green nephew without black magic; maybe all had not been lost in the fire after all; no one had seen Derek Hale kill Peter, and all the stories were a product of Derek's spies; the Duke was riding out against his nephew to secure his demesne in a week with a mob of pagan Huns at his back…

People came and went, clogging the arteries of the castle so that no one would notice if certain scruffy individuals went in one door carrying nothing but a few words and left a few coins richer. Behind that door sat Lord Stiles, a baron of little consequence to the rest of the peerage, but of great consequence to everyday health and safety of his nation and sovereign.

His chamber was a mess of books and scrolls that were in constant contention with the shelves. They spilled over the table where he was currently seated across from a young man who was giving him eyes that Stiles was the opposite of used to.

He was a messenger, or so he claimed, when he had been arrested in a tavern a little too close to the castle to be saying indiscreet things about Derek Hale. Let alone bellow them out the door for all and sundry to hear. The man was in dusty Argent livery and had a pouch with a message in it addressed to Lord McCall, captain of the guard, so Stiles was inclined to believe the job description.

"I'm drun_k_," slurred the messenger, cocking his head as he drew out the final consonant.

Stiles leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Mmhmm."

The man's dark eyebrows scrunched over his green eyes. "It's my first message, and I'm _drunk_." He pulled himself to his feet. "Where's Lord McCall? I have a message for him."

"He's on his way," Stiles lied. "Sit down and wait for him."

The messenger peered down at him from where he was leaning on the table. "You're a very handsome man, boy."

Stiles rolled his eyes. It was just the latest in a long string of backhanded compliments that bedecked his life like strands of evergreen boughs on Christmas. "Yes, I am, very handsome and darn smart besides. Anybody would be lucky to have me. Sit down."

"Do you want me to sit down?" the messenger leered. No wonder he'd gotten himself arrested. Stiles may only have been a man-boy, but damn it, he was still Baron Man-boy at the end of the day, and he could have him killed.

"What I actually want is for all the archangels to come swooping in that door, blast their trumpets in my ear and sing out that the king's coffers are endless, winter has gone back to Hell and cats will stay kittens forever. Failing that, I want a hot supper and a warm bed. Preferably both within the next ten minutes."

Stiles' outburst had thrown the man into a stupor. "I'm sitting down," he announced, as he lowered himself to the ground next to Stiles' chair.

"You're kneeling, not sitting," Stiles felt perversely moved to say. He hadn't said anything so ridiculous in ages— hours, even! And he thought he'd been improving in the area of people's mouths near his crotch.

The man's eyes were very, very green. There was a look in them that shone through the cloudy stupor, an intensity that sent a shiver down his back. It wasn't so much the look but the memory of something more, more eyes, and oh holy mother of god that was a hand right over his cock. Stiles really should be say something now. Anything.

Or he could take his pants off, that could also work. The man was licking his lips, and Stiles' cock loved that. It also liked the warmth of his mouth, the press of his tongue, and the noises of his lips' wet slide. "Is this a dream?" he demanded, in between valiant efforts to regain his breath. "I fell asleep at my desk again, didn't I? Because I think my prisoner is sucking me off in my office and that can't end well."

The man lifted his green eyes to meet Stiles'. "Can't it, my lord?" he said with a shit-eating grin.

Stiles' hand scrabbled in his dark hair and directed his mouth back down, cursing. "Not really," he panted, in the last real words he coherently managed. The man swallowed him down when he came, which was awfully tidy of him, Stiles thought in a drifting kind of way. The messenger looked like someone who would sooner use a piece of vellum to wipe himself off than anything, and Stiles would rather cut his own throat than see his books mistreated.

The man sat back, looking pleased with himself. Which made Stiles realize how very not-pleased he was with himself. Not at all. He felt foul, and as he laced himself back up, it occurred to him that there were very sensible reasons why engaging in carnal acts with detainees was frowned upon. He had to send the man to the gaol now until he could be sure he posed no real threat to the King aside from empty words. It was his job, and he'd never felt so bad about it before. It just felt like something Peter Hale would do.

Well, the man seemed harmless enough. Neither war nor famine nor plague was bearing down on the country's borders as far as he knew— and he knew everything. Besides, Stiles thought bitterly, he could give a good description of the man if ever he needed him back.

"Thanks," he started. (Really? Table manners at a time like this, Stilinski?) He cleared his throat and flew right over his embarrassment before the other man noticed. "You should return to your master now."

The messenger got to his feet and straightened his uniform, listing to the side a little. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Do I get a tip?"

Stiles' stomach lurched as if he were ill. He dug into the leather pouch at his hip and pulled out a few coins at random. "Here," he grunted.

The man palmed them with the same grin as earlier. He made for the door, but Stiles stopped him. "No, not that way."

He couldn't have a drunk wandering around the keep telling everyone God-only-knew-what about Stiles. He got to his feet and pressed on a certain corner of the stonework on his office wall. The stones swung open just below chest height, making a doorway leading to a black tunnel. "Keep your left hand on the wall," Stiles enunciated clearly. "Don't move your left hand from the wall. You'll come out near the South Road." _Under_ the South Road technically, but it couldn't be helped. These were the only directions he'd be able to remember, if indeed he'd remember anything at all. The man would find his way out of the sewers eventually. Probably. Stiles didn't let himself feel guilty about that. And anyway, there were a thousand very good reasons to simplify his directions a bit. There were people out there who spied on each other for money, for example, and he didn't trust them one bit.

Stiles almost clipped the man on the ass when he swung the door shut behind him. The stonework was flush with the rest of the wall again, as if nothing at all was hidden there.

Stiles turned back to his desk, ready to forget that anything had ever happened. He could only groan when he saw the letter with Scott's name on it. There was plenty of time before he would be in bed, he could still pay his old buddy a visit. Stiles reached for it, but had to grab his hand back, moving his fingers as if to clean them. It was like he was covered in pond scum. He stretched out his hand again hesitatingly, and managed to pick it up by the corner with much wincing and grimacing. He wished ferociously that it were summer so he could take a bath.

"Tomorrow," he warned the letter, eyeing it. "Tomorrow you won't be so scary. You won't be scary, and I won't be so fucking stupid."

He gave it a last grim look before stuffing it in his belt pouch, heading out the proper doorway and locking the room behind him. It could wait until morning.

His chamber was pitch black but for a sliver of silver moonlight shining through the crack in the shutters when Stiles' eyes shot wide open. "Oh shit," he said, meaning it. "Shit shit shit," he repeated like an incantation as he swung to his feet.

For the sake of variety, he switched to "Fuck fuck fuck" as he fumbled about his room for the letter. He found it on top of his rumpled shirt on the ground by his bed. He stumbled to the window and ignored the chill as he threw it open. In the moonlight, he read, "I looked out my window and saw the message of your thousand flags this morning. I will come to you tonight!"

Something from the envelope flew away on the wind. Stiles couldn't be sure, but he suspected it was a curl of hair the same brown as Lady Allison Argent's.

Stiles heart pounded in his ears as loud as a galloping horse. He struggled into his clothes, pulling his boots on and nearly stabbing himself in the ankle as he tried to stuff his dagger inside at the same time. There was a coat in his garderobe, and a pack with a blanket, full water skin, money and jerky under his bed.

He pulled himself out the window, grabbing the nobs and cracks in the old stones as easily as a ladder. Up he went, stealing across the wall of the keep. If a guard had known where to look, Stiles could expect a quarrel in his back at any moment, followed by a long fall to a quick death spread-eagled on a rooftop somewhere underneath him. The full moon was a tricky thing like that, he thought with gritted teeth. "I blame everything on lunacy," he groused as his fingers grew numb clinging to the freezing stone. "Not me, nope, not good ole Stiles, just the moon."

But it was him. All his fault. Those green eyes had looked up at him, and he hadn't stood a chance. They hadn't even been the right shade of green, too blue, not enough hazel in them. But anything is better than nothing, as they say.

"Oh shut up, Stiles," he muttered to himself, waiting in the shadow of a crenellation for a passing guard to return to the warmth of the fire. Then he dashed across the walkway, hopped and scaled up the wall, passing a handful of windows before he found the one he wanted. He heaved himself onto the ledge and drew his dagger out. He was only just jimmying the catch to the shutters when they flew open.

Stiles yelped and felt his body lean back into empty space. His heart rushed to his throat, stopping up his scream inside his chest. Then a hand closed around his wrist and yanked him inside. Any coordination he possessed had been won with hard practice; there was nothing natural to it. So, true to form, his momentum carried him forward, sent his blade flying into the night, and Stiles landed bodily atop the person who still had his wrist in a vice.

"Your Majesty," he squeaked, when he recognized the face a bare inch underneath his. There was cold steel at his throat, and Stiles was paralyzed with fear. The hold was broken when Derek Hale's mouth pinched into a scowl.

"Get off of me, Stiles," he ordered.

"Yes, Your Majesty, of course, Your Majesty." Stiles rolled off and onto his feet with as much grace as he could muster, which was minimal. "I need to get you out of here, your life is in danger, pack your bags, get your crown; this is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill."

Derek was still scowling, "What?" he demanded.

"Shhhh!" Stiles hushed, twice as loud as the king. "No time to explain, we need to beat feet like Darius at Gaugamela!"

"Stiles, what are you talking about?" Derek was still holding his dagger in guard position.

"Darius, My King! I've seen you crack a book; you've got to know Darius! Not exactly a politic allusion, I admit, okay, but I'm under pressure here," he babbled, moving his hands in a 'roll with it' kind of plea.

"Stiles," warned Derek, raising his dagger from guard to what was definitely more like attack.

"Alright, alright, you're like Alexander at Gaugamela, the spitting image of him, I swear!"

"Stiles," growled the king. He spoke clearly and slowly, obviously nearing the limit of his patience. "Tell me what you are doing in my room."

It was at that moment that Stiles noticed that the king was naked. "Ahh…"

Derek scowled deeper, staring him down, demanding that his eyes lift their gaze to a level more respectful to the royal person.

"Ahem," Stiles began, making first his feet and then the rest of his body turn to a discreet angle. He addressed his arguments to the lavishly blanketed bed while ignoring the rustle of the king dressing. "I recently came across a communiqué of a very worrying nature—"

"Take it to the Guard, Stiles. That's why they're there." Derek had built that guard up himself once upon a time, man by man. All two hundred and fifty of them, a strike force that had led the final coup against Peter Hale two years ago.

Stiles sighed. Not even he had the words to explain it to Derek. Instead, he reached into his pouch and held out Lady Allison's letter. The king snatched it, and a beat later asked, "What is this?"

"I liberated it from an Argent messenger. As you can see, it's addressed to—" he cleared his throat around a sudden lump. Lord McCall. Scott, who had lived just a few miles away from Stiles when they were both just little lordlings. Scott, whose knowledge of strategy extended to which end of the sword to grab. They had learned to hunt together in the woods behind the Stilinski keep, for fuck's sake. This was all wrong, he told himself.

"Forget it," said Stiles, turning back to Derek. "It's got to be some kind of trick. I mean it's Scott, right? Your right hand man…"

Stiles drifted off. Derek was a silver statue in the moonlight, a study in loss. In one had was the letter; in the other, a strand of hair. His shoulders were slumped and Stiles was glad that the light hid his eyes in the shadow of his brow. He didn't want to know.

"My King?" he asked tentatively.

The silver statue came to life, looking over to Stiles. "Let's go."

Derek dressed, and Stiles wondered how he was going to smuggle him out past his own guard. He couldn't very well expect his tutors to have been well versed in rock climbing. But perhaps he could pick up some spelunking…

Stiles spun to face the wall. "Do you have a candle or something?" he asked, squinting at the wall under his fingertips.

Derek grunted. There were a few scraping and rustling noises from the direction of the hearth, and then a flaming torch came into Stiles' peripheral vision. "Oh, okay. Above and beyond the call of duty."

The light helped his search, but it wouldn't create a door if there weren't one. But there had to be one. Stiles was sure of it. He was about to start crawling about behind the bed when the light faded.

"Your Majesty," he called, waving the light closer. But it had disappeared entirely. Perturbed, Stiles craned his neck around, but his king was nowhere to be seen.

"Your Majesty?" he called again, a little louder and higher. He sounded like a lost child even to his own ears.

"Come on." Derek's voice echoed oddly. Stiles was looking at the ceiling before he found the source. Hidden in the wall by the mantle was the door he had been searching for. Stiles sprinted to it, and made sure to close it tight behind him.

His eyes swam in the blackness, and he couldn't pinpoint the direction of the light from the king's torch at first. Then he set out for it in the fastest stooped run he could manage. These passages were built for a professional skulker's posture.

"Hey," he said when he was face-to-cloak-covered-lower-lumbar-region with the king. "I'd appreciate some warning next time."

The words had barely left his mouth when Derek hung a left and Stiles almost collided with the wall. "Just like that! Right there!"

"Just keep up."

Stiles let out a heavy breath. This was not going to be the easiest escape in the history books. At least the king seemed to know his way. The torch was almost slowing him down; Stiles realized that he would have been able to navigate the tunnels by touch and smell alone. Or perhaps his eyesight was just that good, Stiles didn't know. He didn't know anything about the man at all.

"Erm," Stiles began. Silence. A few seconds later he tried again. "This is a way out of the keep, right?"

Still nothing, but that didn't stop Stiles. He needed to talk or it would be a race between his head and his heart to see which would explode first. "We will need horses, My King. I know of a stable or two if we take a right here. Or not. That's fine too. Plenty of stables to be found; I'm sure Your Majesty knows best."

Derek rumbled, from which Stiles understood, "Damn right."

"Oh," said Stiles, "so that's where we're going." He had recognized a grate with an unusual blacksmith's mark. They were well out of the castle's range now, deep in the labyrinth of the Beacon Hill sewer system. It was an infamous grate, because it had never once been securely shut in anyone's living memory. Which was a happy coincidence for many nefarious types given the grate's location. It was at the end of an unobtrusive little alleyway in between some of the busiest taverns of the city. That sewer grate probably saw more money drain into it each night than any single legitimate business in that quarter of the city.

It was also Stiles' least favorite place in the world. His father had brought him there once in the small hours of the morning, when Stiles has been about thirteen and cocky. Too cocky for his own good, as his father had wisely seen. His smart-ass son hadn't been too eager to run his mouth after just a few minutes trying to survive down with the rats— those on two legs as well as on four.

"You're quiet," said the king as he drew up to another nearby grate.

"Bad memories here," Stiles shrugged, rolling the memories of black blood off his back and away.

"I don't know if there are any good memories down here."

"Only too true, My King." Stiles managed a little smile, because he thought they could both use it.

Derek didn't seem to know what to do with it. He looked at Stiles with searching eyes, before deciding to answer with a nod.

Stiles gave him a pat on the shoulder by way of encouragement as he went up to the sewer. "Never fear, My King," he said, injecting some cheer into his voice. He squirmed his way between the bars, sending up a prayer of thanks for his waifish figure not for the first time. "With the Baron Stiles on your side, what can go wrong?"

Stiles crouched down to pull on the last bar to the right while Derek pushed. Just then, a hand clapped down on his shoulder. Derek's fingers flew away, and he disappeared into darkness as the torch was doused. "What do you think you're doing, little thieves?"

"Suffering from God's best joke yet," said Stiles. "Ow ow ow," he protested as the man's fingers dug into a pressure point while yanking him to his feet. He caught a glimpse of his antagonist over his shoulder. The night watch. They were only ever around when you really didn't want them to be.

"I'm not laughing," the watchman told him in a voice that smelled overwhelmingly of garlic.

"Well, has anyone ever explained the concept of irony to you?"

The watchman didn't like that very much. His hand whipped out, catching him a ringing blow to the ear. "Again, _ow_!" he yelled.

The watchman drew his hand back. It wouldn't be just a friendly cuff this time. Stiles squeezed his eyes shut. Goodbye, nose, I'll miss you, he thought giddily.

A crunching sound made him flinch. His hand raced to his poor nose. The blood, the pain, it was terrible, awful—"Oh!" he said. His fingers touched the bridge of his nose, the nostrils. All intact. The cute little perk at the end was still there, too, thank God.

Derek was looming over a still body. His face turned to Stiles, and for a second he could have sworn the king's eyes flash crimson as if he were literally seeing red.

"Irony?!" he demanded, arms spreading. "Of all the things you could have said, you chose to give a night watchman a lecture on literary devices?"

"My methods," Stiles explained, straightening his coat, "are sophisticated."

"Your methods," Derek repeated, "will get you killed. And maybe me too next time, I don't know."

Stiles wasn't having any of that. He whipped his throwing dagger from his sleeve and watched as Derek's shoulder jerked back in an automatic reaction to the weapon flying at him. The blade stuck in the wood of the building behind him, quivering at cheek level. Derek's eyes were wide and confused.

"Not okay," Stiles articulated clearly. "It would have hit you between the eyes if I wanted." He jabbed his finger a few times for good measure. "But I didn't. My King, I'm here to help save you, not to give you up."

Derek's scowl had straightened to a tense line that spoke only of pig-headedness. Stiles tried once more. "Look. I just need to know that you won't dump me by the side of the road for the Argents to find."

The king looked him in the eye. Then, just in the slightest, his face softened, and he turned to pull Stiles' knife from the wall. He extended it handle first. "I won't."

Stiles smiled, gave the knife a fancy twirl and shoved it back in its wrist sheathe. "Sophistication," he crowed, "don't underestimate it. It's one of the few things I always remember to pack."

Derek snorted. "Save us the performance. Next time just say you're on king's business."

They started towards the mouth of the alleyway, towards passing flashes of cloaks and the clop of horses' hooves. "And you think he was your man?" Stiles asked.

"They are sworn to the crown."

Stiles stopped them again. They weren't going to get anywhere with this kind of selective blindness. "Is that the crown in your pocket?" he demanded. "Or are you just happy to see me?"

The king stared at him like he wanted to throw Stiles the same punch he'd given the night watchman. "Keep a civil tongue in your mouth when you speak to me," he hissed.

"Yes, Your Majesty, I apologize," Stiles said, making a bow a good hour or so too late. "I say stupid things at stupid times to people, such as your good self, who really don't like to hear those things, I'm working on it, I swear— but, but, but," he hurried, getting to his point as Derek's eyes narrowed. "What I mean is that we don't know what's going on at all. Who knows whose gold was keeping that man's family fed," he finished, gesturing at the man splayed behind them.

"You're my spymaster, aren't you? You tell me what's going on."

Stiles shrugged helplessly. "I showed you what I know. And I only knew that about five minutes before you did." A merciless voice in his head accused him that he could have known much sooner than that. Stiles was a shit spymaster. Maybe Derek would be better off with him in a ditch after all. He struggled to say so, like the honest soul he was, but he came out offering a truth that was somehow easier at the moment, horribly easier. "My best friend is plotting with the most powerful dukedom in the country to take your throne tonight."

Silence. Derek's eyes were glowing with an intensity that forced Stiles' gaze down. A shiver of vulnerability crept up his bared neck. Panic took him for a second, that the king knew everything, that this was some kind of test, even. 'Please, please,' he begged, although he wasn't sure what he was begging for. To wake up from this whole nightmare of an evening, probably.

Stiles felt Derek's retreat in his bones, and peeked up to see him glaring out at the world flying by the alley. "He won't have it," said Derek. "I'm the king."

There they were, creeping in the shadows and on the run, but Derek sounded like he was at his coronation. The words sent a thrill of something like pride through Stiles' body. "Lead on, Your Majesty. You look like you know where you're going."

As it turned out, where he was going was one of the fancier stables in the fanciest quarter of Beacon Hills. Derek swept, barely noticing the snoring boy slumped on corner stool a glance. The king walked down the aisle of horses without pausing for any of them. He pointed inside of one stall and raised his eyebrows at Stiles. That was his horse, apparently.

Stiles followed the king down to the tack room at the end of the hall, and they got their horses saddled and bridled. His mount was a sweet dapple grey who looked almost blue in the night. Derek led the way out with a handsome black mare, dropping something that sparkled in the stable boy's lap as he went.

The east was just starting to glow when they turned the corner that brought the city gate into view. Stiles had brought his horse up to Derek's side by then. He looked at the gate. The guards above it didn't seem any less bored and irritable than normal, but he still he thought it wise to suggest, "Maybe you should put a bag over your head or something until we pass through."

"To look more suspicious."

"To stop some burly archer up on that wall from looking down and saying to his buddy, 'Gee, those two exceptionally clean and well-dressed young bucks down there look just like nobility. Especially that one there with the black hair and virile stubble— why, I'd wager 'tis the king himself! Off I pop to the Argents, they're sure to give me tons of cash for this bit of news! What luck! Drinks on me!'"

Derek flipped the hood of his cape over his head, but not so fast that Stiles couldn't catch the corner of a faint smile on his lips. It untied a knot in his chest. The king was full of surprises this morning, it seemed, because he opened his mouth unprompted to say, "I normally rise on my own just after sun up. No one will be expecting me for another three quarters of an hour or so. Under normal circumstances," he added.

Stiles casually arranged his coat over as much of his expensive boots and tack as possible, and did his best impression of a sleepy merchant's scion as they approached the gate. He kept his head down and tried to suppress his instinct to dart furtive glances up at the guardsmen along the wall and by the base. This was a shitty disguise, he hadn't been careful enough, they should have secured horses outside Beacon Hill, and oh God but he'd still never danced with Lady Lydia. Oh God, he was going to die… Stiles squeezed his eyes shut as they passed underneath the gate. The shadow of the gate fell over him and away again.

He opened his eyes one at a time. The dawn light was stronger beyond the wall with no buildings to block it. Its rosy glow was kind to the spread of ramshackle huts and dirty channels that crawled down last of Beacon Hill's slope. The fields and woods of the hinterland rolled on to the horizon, with plumes of smoke from the hearths of early risers wafting into the robin's-egg blue sky. It looked peaceful.

Too peaceful.

Where were the thousand flags waving the Argent bow? Stiles' first thought was gleeful and congratulatory. They'd be far away and safe before anyone even knew they were missing! His second thought threw him into a panic. No flags. None, no where.

He was finished.

This must a trap.

No, there must be flags.

How could he have doubted Scott like this?

His father was going to be so disappointed.

He wheeled his horse in a circle, eyes wild, and gasped out in a disintegrating voice, "My King. No flags, My King, there aren't any flags!"

"Stiles!"

"Oh my God, Your Majesty, no flags, something is wrong. We need to go back!" His horse began to throw his head, ears going flat.

Derek leaned over and snatched Stiles' reins as the horse circled by him again. He dragged the horse to a stop next to him and clapped a hand over Stiles' mouth to hiss, "Shut up, and stop saying my name."

Stiles' eyes flicked over to Derek. The king's gaze was strong and steady, and he latched onto it like an anchor. His breathing began to slow back to normal. Derek removed his hand.

Stiles looked about more calmly. The road was empty except for a few bemused farmers rubbernecking in a cart trundling by. "The Messiah is come!" He rolled his eyes like a rabid dog as Derek's hand slapped over his lips again.

The farmers lost interest, twitching the reins of the oxcart. Just your average raving madman, nothing to see here, move along.

Stiles batted at Derek's wrist, making muffled sounds until he was released. "Don't get excited, just getting rid of the crowd. Can I go back to panicking about my horrible, awful, very bad mistake now?"

The king sighed, tipping his head back. "The Argents don't need a thousand men in Beacon Hills, Stiles," he said in a heavy voice. "They already have two hundred and fifty."

Stiles mind shot into action, tongue slipping out to lick his lips before he jolted in his saddle, "Ahh! Ahhhhh, I got it! You must have been very busy since the coronation. A whole country to put back together again. How long has it just been Lord McCall in charge of your guard?"

Derek wasn't looking at him. "More than a year." He couldn't remember the last time he knew the names of the men posted outside his door.

Two hundred and fifty men. It wasn't a guard, it was a personal army, and as it had been enough to corner and kill one Hale, it would be enough to kill the other, too. Even without the tens of thousands the Argents could raise, were answering their call at this very moment, it was enough. How many Argent men had kissed Derek's ring only to spit on the ground as soon as he'd turned his back?

"We need to go," Derek said. Messengers would be riding hard for Lord Gerard soon if they weren't on the road already.

"To my father's hold."

Derek shot him a look.

Stiles shot him one back. "It's loyal, very ably defended, within a day's ride if we push the horses, and—"

"Stiles," Derek cut in, in a voice dark with threat. "I'd be breaking my word."

"You don't know that," Stiles countered. "And it's what my father would say to do if he were here."

The king's jaw set. He twitched his heels against his horse's black belly, and Stiles followed suit. Their horses' hooves pounded down the road as they galloped for the Stilinski lands with the dawn light glaring in their eyes.

The sun was much farther overhead when Derek dropped to his feet off his horse's back. "Thank you, God, and all the blessèd saints and angels," Stiles gasped, slipping down and stumbling almost flat on his ass. He leveraged himself up with the help of the stirrup. He'd grown more accustomed to sitting on chairs than saddles over the past few years. He loosened the girth a few notches, getting his hands slimy with dirty horse sweat in the process. Poor beast.

"Want to trade mounts?" Stiles asked.

Derek smirked. Neither he nor his steed looked half as winded as Stiles and his nag. "My father told me about this breed when he came back from the Crusades. Bellerophon himself couldn't want a quicker mount, he said. They were like a legend to me." He stroked the mare's nose gently before turning and setting the pace at a steady walk.

The king looked lost in his thoughts. Stiles felt that itch in his fingers that meant he either wanted something he couldn't have or that there was something interesting just under the surface. He started to dig.

"My father always talked to me about his travels, too. And the work. I thought it was like something a bard would sing. He could figure anything out, like Odysseus almost. When I was six, and he needed to go to some corner of the country on business, I stowed away in his cart. He only found me at lunch when all his apples were gone." Stiles smiled at the memory. "Didn't mean I got to stick around though. He had to drive all the way back home and probably would have beaten me if he'd been any other man."

Stiles looked over at Derek. The king was fixing him with the green light of his eyes again. It made Stiles uncomfortable as he remembered for the hundredth time this long morning that he nothing whatsoever about him.

No time like the present. Stiles cleared his throat. "I'm sorry about the fire, by the way."

The light in Derek's eyes flicked off. Or inward, perhaps. "Thank you."

Stiles waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. He pursed his lips and nodded deeply in hope of exuding manly comfort.

They heard the babble of a creek singing out from a copse of wood a short way from the road. Derek led them there for the horses to drink, positioning them safely behind a massive holly. Stiles splashed water on his face and refilled his skin. He fished out the jerky from his bag and began gnawing. He waved some at Derek. "Want any?"

The king sniffed at it, then wrinkled his nose and turned his face away. Stiles shrugged. Maybe it was a power thing, being impervious to hunger and thirst. Whatever.

They'd left the show-and-tell moment behind them. Derek was silent, glaring into the distance under a rumpled forehead.

"You'll get wrinkles like that," Stiles commented, shaking his shred of jerky at him as he wandered about stretching his legs.

"I don't understand half of what you say to me, Stiles," Derek replied, more a charge than an admission. He turned to Stiles. "What do you—"

Suddenly the king's eyes flew wide open, and he threw himself flat on the ground. Stiles looked down at him, and then crumbled next to him when Derek knocked him hard on the back of his knee. He hit the earth with a squelch in a mud puddle left over from the last of the autumn rains.

"_Why? _Why? Why?" Stiles protested, rolling over in his puddle to address the sky. What was a little more mud when your sovereign, who you had just personally rescued, kept knocking you about?

"Shh. Don't move."

"Why?"

"_Shh."_

He was about to list his objections when he heard the thunder of hooves on the road. "From the city?" Stiles whispered, paralyzed. The king's attention was on the road, but he nodded.

"Messengers," Derek explained, getting to his feet when the noise had faded. "Several of them."

"Right," said Stiles, sitting up slowly and rubbing his head where it had smacked the ground. So the roads weren't safe anymore. And his jerky had sunk to the bottom of a stagnant pool in the shape of his boot. It was all too much. He looked up at his king. "Well, what the fuck do we do now?"

Derek's eyebrows raised and said, as if it were the clearest plan in the world, "We go cross-country." He stuck out a hand and hauled Stiles to his feet.

Stiles tried to wipe the mud from his hands and only succeeded in spreading it about. When he looked up, Derek was mounted again and raring to go. "You like this," Stiles accused, to buy some more recovery time. He slopped some water on his horse's sweaty chest and pulled its girth tight once more.

"Being hunted by my own guard? Hm, no, I don't think so, Stiles." He sounded more tired than annoyed.

"No, not that, Your Majesty," he tried again patiently as he hopped into his saddle. "Oh good, blisters," he commented before picking up the reins and nudging his horse towards Derek. "You like _this_," he said, making an all-encompassing gesture at the trees and sky. "The riding, the fighting, the _action_."

"Just get me to your hold," the king ground out. Stiles opened his mouth to dig himself a deeper hole but was cut off. "In as few words as possible."

He tried not to take it personally. He lifted a shoulder in a jaunty shrug. "You're missing out," Stiles said, before kicking his horse into a canter. He could still remember a game trail or two in the region that would lead them home.

It was still far past suppertime before they reached the gate to Stiles' home. "Hello the keep!" he shouted up at the wall, to be echoed by his growling stomach.

"Who is it?" came an answering cry from the tower.

Stiles wondered when his request that all calls be answered with "Friend or foe?" had been countermanded. Immediately, probably.

"It's me, Stiles!" he yelled.

A helmeted head poked around a crenellation. It was reassuring to see a bit of caution. "And your companion?"

"A wandering monk, come to pray for my father's soul!"

"Then welcome home, my lord! One moment while we get the gate!"

Stiles sat back in his saddle with a smile.

Derek was scrunching his eyebrows again. "Should I even ask anymore?"

"It's code," Stiles clarified. "He knows that I know that you know that my father is alive."

"Right," Derek agreed vaguely.

"Exxxactly," Stiles finished, guiding his exhausted horse towards the creaking gates.

They handed off their mounts to the stable boys who had jogged out to meet them in the bailey. Hot on their heels was the steward. "Stilinski!" he barked, getting a jump out of his lord, just like he had when Stiles had been eight and knee-deep in the cheese larder.

"Finstock! Tell me you missed me!" He held out his arms with a roguish grin.

Finstock ignored the hug, pulling up into Stiles' face and scowling to beat the king. "Where the hell have you been? We got a letter at noon. Your father has been worried sick about you ever since." He gave Stiles his best crazy-eyed glare until the lord was backing up and spouting all manner of explanatory nonsense.

"Ahh, I'm just kidding with you; come 'ere, kid." He captured Stiles under his elbow to dig knuckles into his scalp. "Except about your dad. He's probably going to disinherit you," he added ruefully. He led the way into the keep, leaning in to ask Stiles _sotto voce_ while tipping his thumb at Derek, "Why does he look like Greenberg shat in his supper?"

"I think he always looks like that," Stiles replied, not caring if the king heard. Served him right for being such a sourpuss. Sourwolf would probably be more appropriate, actually, given the Hale crest. Wolf rampant, triskelion quartering.

And then he came face to face with his father for the first time in months covered in dried mud and sweat and wearing a stupid grin on his face.

The old Baron Stilinski stayed in his seat by the fire. He looked his son up and down, and heaved a great sigh as he drew a hand over his face. "You know, I really thought I did my best." He motioned for his steward. "Finstock, could you see to it that my son has some clean clothes in his chamber? And some water."

"I could always dunk him in the trough if you like, my lord…" The man offered, motioning outside. When neither father nor son took him up on it, he coughed, gave a nod, and left, muttering, "I'll bring in something from the kitchen."

Stiles couldn't wipe his grin off his face, for all that he probably looked the fool. "Aw, come on, Dad, I didn't screw everything up. See, look who I brought!" He turned aside to reveal the king, who had inevitably hidden himself in the shadows.

The old Baron shot to his feet when he recognized his visitor. "Your Majesty!" He bowed deeply. "Whatever my son has done, I apologize profusely." He broke off to look at Stiles. "Is this an occasion where I should get down on my knees?" he asked with concern.

"No, this is good."

He nodded, and directed his attention back to Derek. "He's still young, and normally harmless. I don't know what's gotten into him. We will pay, of course, for whatever damages— are you sure I shouldn't be begging?" The baron demanded.

Stiles gave an affronted splutter and looked back and forth between him and Derek for help. He settled on Derek, spreading his hands and pleading, "Feel free to cut in any time!"

The king's smirk was floating around his lips again. "I was enjoying myself," he informed them.

Stiles' hands fell to smack against his thighs. Fantastic. Mocking him might as well be the national pastime now. He flopped in a huff on a stool by the fire.

Derek's comment seemed to have moved the baron into more comfortable territory. Most people gave in to the temptation to rile his son up eventually; it showed a sense of humor. He looked at the seating arrangement and tossed one of his blankets over the chair facing him before inviting the king to sit down with another stiff bow. Derek sat, making the rough wooden chair into a throne.

"You must forgive us on the social niceties, Your Majesty," the baron said, lowering himself into his own seat gingerly. "There has not been any lady here to keep our standards up for many years now."

"Not at all, Baron," the king replied smoothly, as if he were before his entire court. "It's a pleasure to be here."

"Ah, yes, about that." The baron shifted uneasily. "We had a rider. You've gone missing?"

"I have."

"Presumed kidnapped?"

Stiles felt the need to chime in. "Not my fault!"

Derek cooperated for once. "Stiles warned me about a plot against my life last night. We came straight here. No one saw us."

The baron rubbed a hand at his chin, mulling this over. "Are you certain?"

"No one who would have recognized us. I would not have endangered your privacy if there had been any doubt."

It was no accident that there were technically two Baron Stilinski's, one of whom ninety-nine percent of the realm believed was killed in the final rout of Peter Hale's army. While Derek's sword had been sawing into his uncle's throat, the old Baron was hiding in a chest in the king's tent with a crimson rag of a shirt pressed to his thigh. When Derek had returned, he'd discovered his spymaster pale from blood loss and tendering his resignation. He'd asked to live out the rest of his days limping about his keep in peace and quiet. His job and title would go to his son, Stiles, who was more than ready to take up the job the tired old man was more than ready to pass on. Derek had been too tired to argue, and the Baron Stilinski was presumed to have nobly sacrificed his life defending the country's rightful heir to the throne.

"Mm." The former spymaster looked to the current one. "What about you, disappearing the same night as the king?"

Stiles waved a hand in dismissal. "I'm good, I left a note."

"You what?" His father blinked.

"I left a note saying I was leaving early to check on my holdings here. This is the last place they'll look for him now."

The old baron raised and finger and opened his mouth as if to protest, but no words came out. He shut it. Then he opened it again, and shook his finger, confessing, "I would not have thought of that."

Stiles shrugged carelessly. "Just a stroke of genius."

His father twisted his lips ruefully. "You wanna have a few more of those? The Argents are calling themselves regents until the king's found. Dead or alive, I might add."

"Ahh," said Stiles, exchanging a look with Derek without meaning to. So this was it. This was really it. Stiles couldn't pinch himself awake from this nightmare.

Neither could Derek, he saw. A sadness colored his eyes, seeping into the king's features as if it were walking a familiar path. Stiles knew he should look away, because this wasn't the king, just wrath and pain as bright and obvious as the sun in the sky. Derek's shoulders hunched as he raised his head. Their eyes grazed each other, but they were too nervous to hold.

Stiles let out his breath in a loud whoosh. He was jumpy, needed a focus. He let the angst drive him towards the problem at hand re: getting the king back on that throne. "You need an army."

"I need to rip Scott's throat out. And then Gerard Argent's."

Baron Stilinski held out a hand, "Woah, begging your pardon, my king, but _Lord Scott McCall_? What does he have to do with it?"

"Sold me out for Lady Allison," Derek growled, staring into the fire and clenching his fists.

Stiles' father shook his head slowly. "No, I can't believe that…" He looked over at his son and mouthed "Is it true?"

Stiles pressed his lips together and stared down at his feet. He wasn't on the road anymore, running for his life like he never had before, as if the world had suddenly turned upside-down. He was sitting with his father in the keep where he and Scott had grown up together. He couldn't believe it either.

"If Scott did commit treason," the old Baron began, treating the words as if they were in a foreign language.

"There's no 'if,'" Derek butt in.

He nodded slowly. "So I'm beginning to understand. But I can't believe that this was Scott's idea."

Derek was staring at the fire like it held the answers. The light cast his skin in shades of bronze and copper. "It must be Gerard."

There was a pause. Stiles sensed his father wanted to ask the question that was on all their minds, but didn't feel it was appropriate. Good thing he had a reckless young man on hand to do the heavy lifting for him.

"Soooo is this a vengeance thing?" he tried.

Derek didn't even blink as he immediately replied, "Yes."

"Right," Stiles said, dragging the word out as he shot his father a worried look. They'd been stuck in the middle of blood feuds before, and they were always impossibly complicated, deadly serious and tragically pointless. Not that the old Baron Stilinski regretted uncovering Lady Katherine's role in the Hale castle fire at all. It had been cold-hearted murder— and, as the king's betrothed, against her own future kin no less— she had deserved her execution. It had also been one more reason for the baron to disappear; no use upsetting the Hale's most valuable allies, even if the lady's own brother had renounced her. But if Duke Gerard was still plotting to avenge his daughter two years after her death, then no amount of gold or logic was going to stop him.

Which led them right back to armies. They needed men. Men with swords. Men with swords and horses. Gold to pay for all these men, swords and horses. None of which they had.

"Lord Boyd will come," Derek declared, as if reading Stiles' mind. "As will Lady Erica. I gave them their lands and titles. They'll come."

"And the Viscount Lahey," Baron Stilinski added.

The young baron coughed and grimaced. Derek's scowl deepened.

Stiles' father realized he was in the middle of one of those moments that all parents have when they feel so unspeakably old that they should just crawl into their graves immediately and leave their children to sort themselves out. "What? What did I say?"

"Lord Isaac has gone hunting at Scott's estate thrice in the past month alone," Stiles reported. "Last spring, he threw Scott's birthday party."

"But you've always hosted his birthday party."

Stiles tried to shrug. "I know. But I was busy. It was really nice of him though."

His father wasn't buying it, and the glint in his eyes promised a heart-to-heart in their imminent future. "So we don't know about Lord Isaac. But you do have my men, of course," he assured Derek, facing him again. "Such as they are."

The Stilinskis had made their way in the world with their wits, not their wealth. They were well-defended for an average stronghold, but they'd give out in no time under the kind of siege the Argents could mount.

"You have the Martins," Stiles said. "What about Lord Daniel?"

The king went over the situation joylessly. "The Mahealani demesne is too far away to come fast, and any men would have to travel through Lahey land first to get here. Or Whittemore."

Stiles dropped his head back and groaned, dragging his hands down his face. "Lord Jackson. Why does it always have to be Lord Jackson?"

"Maybe because he's the richest man in the kingdom?"

Stiles' head was still craned up to the ceiling when he said in a small voice, "Maybe because he's a massive asshole, and God hates me."

"Don't be crass, Stiles," his father rebuked. "So how do we get Duke Whittemore on our side, My King?"

Derek didn't have time to answer before Stiles let out another long groan. "No, Dad," he said, looking back down at the other two men again and nodding slowly as if to confirm his own worst fears. "God honestly does hate me." He shut his eyes. Best to just get this over with. "I know exactly how to get the duke on His Majesty's side."

The king's eyebrows raised in that particular way that meant, "Well?"

"Please, My King," Stiles protested, "No eyebrows, just this once. I beg of you." He felt very tired. He was filthy and exhausted from the death-defying feats of what had only been one day. He wanted to fall asleep to fantasies of Lydia Martin singing to their children in a cottage garden by the sea. He didn't want to say what he was about to say, but he wasn't about to say anything if the king was going to be sassy.

Derek looked as if he were stockpiling an arsenal of eyebrows, but before he could begin, the old Baron Stiliniski leaned forward in his chair. With his eyes focused and his hands clasped, he asked in just the right tone, "What is it, son?"

Stiles had missed that voice. Hadn't known until that moment, but it didn't matter. His dad was with him, and so everything was going to be okay.

"What does Duke Whittemore love more than money?"

There was no response. Neither the king nor the baron was going to say that Lydia Martin was the key to victory, not after what she'd been put through with Peter Hale. She didn't deserve it.

"No," Derek said flatly. "Not this. Not again."

Stiles' heart leapt in two directions at once. Words rushed to his lips, demanding to be let out, and his hands grasped the air. "Argh! His heart is like the size of a _pea_, Your Majesty! There's no other way in!"

"I'll promise him land."

"He will laugh at you."

Derek bristled. He jumped to his feet, his shadow arching onto the ceiling as if he had transformed into a monster. He loomed over them, howling, "I will not sell him Lydia! That's it!" His cry rang through the hall without an answer.

The old baron finally rubbed his forehead and broke the silence. "Well. There must be another way." He stood. "Things will look different in the morning; you must be exhausted, Your Majesty; can I show you to your room?"

"Thank you, I'd like to think some more."

"Of course. Stiles…?" The baron was wearing an unmistakable we-need-to-talk face. Which Stiles didn't even notice, because he was occupied taking the measure of Derek's eyebrows.

"Well," the baron said again. "Stiles, make sure someone is on hand to show the king to his quarters."

"No problem, Dad."

* * *

I didn't sit down. If I sat, I would have fallen asleep. There was no time for that, none.

Stiles pushed a plate of mutton my way. I pushed it back.

He pushed it forward. "Don't pretend you're not hungry, My King," he said just as I explained, "You let me have the last of the jerky earlier." His tone made me want to snatch the plate away for myself, but I balled my fists.

"Oh," he said, eyes blinking wide and surprised.

'Oh' was right. Of course I'd noticed. I snorted and watched as he picked up a knife to eat. Good.

I rolled my shoulders and neck. Tried to think. Argents would already be moving to contain Erica and Boyd. Thank God neither had been at court during the coup, or their heads would already be on spikes over the gate, and the game would already be over. Not that it would matter at all if I couldn't move them, move their men. And then there was Isaac.

"Damn you, Scott McCall!"

I threw the stool against the wall, and it tumbled down to roll to my feet. It was the hundredth time I'd cursed his name, which was nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands of times I'd cursed Gerard Argent's name. The boy would never have given up his sinecure without that demon master hissing in his ear. I wanted to rip Gerard's throat out with my fingernails. Tear his face to bloody rags. My fingers itched for my sword, any sword— I grabbed the stool up and beat it against the wall again and again and again until splinters flew past my eyes and only the raw chunk of one leg was left to clatter from my hand on to the floor.

Stiles was yelling something, and I turned to see him backed against the wall. I'd scared him there, I'd moved him, I yelled, "Come here, Stiles!"

"Nah, you don't look very balanced right now—"

I'd moved him there, my force against his body, overpowering. "I said, _come here_, _Stiles_."

"Oh, God Almighty," he prayed.

I would crush him against the wall, throw him to the floor, make him whimper and roll over for me. "STILES!"

He took a small step forward. I snarled at him, and he took another and then another until he stood in front of me. I circled him as he quivered there, a rabbit in front of a wolf. Good.

"If Scott McCall asks you to fight by his side like the brothers you once were, be a hero, win money and power and glory that isn't hidden in some back closet of the castle, how will you answer him, Stiles? Will you say yes?"

"No."

"How do I know that?"

"How do you know?" he spluttered. "My King, you don't need to scare the shit out of me to see with your own eyes who brought you here— at considerable personal risk!"

I stopped in front of him and stared. He didn't understand. He was too young to know that the civil war that had started less than a day ago (years ago, Derek, years ago, whispered Uncle Peter) was going to be deadly and ugly and people he loved would die. He would want his friends and the quickest way out, the Argent way out. I lived in black lands where nothing was ever easy. "I'm trying to make you see that I need your loyalty, Stiles. More than anyone. You are the strongest player I have, and you can win this war. Can I trust you?" Show me, Stiles.

"Your Majesty," he began, amber eyes wide, "Today I felt like I was going to die. All day long, I thought I was going to die. An arrow maybe, my horse will throw me, I'll trip and break my neck, I don't know. I don't know." He glanced away and gave a small shrug. "But it's good— not good, this isn't good. This is the right to do."

He surprised me. He reached down to take my right hand. With due gravity, he looked at my signet ring and then looked at me as he brought it to his lips and kissed it lightly. "I pledge myself to your cause, My King, on my honor as the second Baron Stilinski."

My hand, just a little warmer, slipped back to my side. The illusion of the ancient lord shattered when he grinned and became Stiles again. The urge to break stools had passed, and I was exhausted. "Thank you. I will retire now."

"I'll get Finstock to attend you," replied Stiles. "Sweet dreams, My King."

I wondered if he knew what he'd done, and if I had the luxury of rejecting him for his own good. This is what the Argents had reduced me to, a wretch so desperate for allies that he could not think of his own honor. Not that I had much.

I fell asleep after midnight and woke up well before dawn. The moon was bright in my eyes, brighter than the sun had ever seemed to me. I knew from experience I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep; insomnia was a Hale trademark. Mother used to call us her little werewolf cubs on nights where we each found our own way to the larder for a midnight snack. That was a long time ago, a lifetime.

I did pushups and situps for a while, stretching out the muscles that had taken a beating from yesterday's ride. Everything hurt.

I was dressed and on the wall in time for sunrise. There was Beacon Hills in the distance. It looked like a small mound of tumbling bricks, but clouds thick and snowy rose above it like a crown, like everything that was mine. Not for the first time, I wished I'd asked Uncle Peter if it had been worth it, leaving us alone together. Not for the first time, I was glad I'd cut his throat as soon as I'd had him in reach.

"May I join you?" asked the old baron as he approached. I grunted, 'no,' but he pretended not to hear. At least, unlike his son, he could stay silent for a time.

"You know, Your Majesty," he began as pink washed over the golden east and Beacon Hills burned. "Sometimes a man faces a tough decision. Sometimes he thinks he's made up his mind, but then he goes and looks at his family."

"Or his kingdom," I followed.

"Yes, please hear me out; or his kingdom, yes. He goes and sees how his son has grown taller, or that the boy should really get his hair cut. But anyway, a man looks at his son and thinks, 'I should not go to war. What I have here is too precious.' Or he looks at his son and thinks, 'What I have here is too precious. I should go to war.'"

"Baron Stilinski," I said. "I cannot promise your son's safety."

"I know," he replied. "I know. I can only ask you what kind of man you are."

"You followed me before; don't you know already?"

"I followed you for the sake of my country. I don't know why my son follows you. But he does, with all his heart, so I'm asking you: what kind of man are you?"

I felt his eyes search me, asking for words to remember when he woke up sweating from nightmares. Just words, but I felt mute and childlike. There were so many words I could give him, and only a few of them would be the ones he needed to hear. On top of that, there was honesty and dishonesty, my needs and his needs, and then at the core rested Stiles. He understood words. The thought twisted my stomach as I remembered how Uncle Peter would talk, would dance around me, and I could only stand there before the court like a dumb beast red with bloodlust. When my voice finally came out, I didn't recognize its harsh, heavy tone as my own. "I fight for what's mine, Baron Stilinski."

The sun came over Beacon Hills, blinding me with white light. I leaned forward over the parapet and stared until sunspots glowed like torches when I blinked.

"I see," said the baron, sounding neither satisfied nor unsatisfied. "Then in return for my help, I can only ask you to remember that Stiles is also yours."

I didn't need to be reminded. This kingdom, with everyone and everything in it, was mine. Not Duke Gerard's, not Uncle Peter's, and certainly not Scott McCall's. "I will."

"Good." The baron's voice lighter as if I had said the right thing somehow. "Then here's what I think you should do, My King…"

The plan had been to wake up an hour or so before dawn. Stiles only rarely got home, and of course it was impossible for his father to come to Beacon Hills without a lot of annoying disguises and plotting that inevitably ended up with one of them wearing a false beard and the other unable to take him seriously. So Stiles had been looking forward to some catching up. Dad time. But when he fell asleep in his own bed (Oh splendid softness! Oh bounty of blankets! Oh peerless palace of dreams!) he may as well have fallen to the bottom of the ocean. He woke up when the first morning light broke through his window, sending him immediately into a panic. He tumbled out of his dream palace and didn't recover his balance completely until he had reached the window almost on all fours.

There were saddles on horses in the bailey.

Shit.

He grabbed his pack and sprinted down the stairs two at a time. He burst out of the keep, making apologies to his bent-backed old nurse, who asked him if he were still a squire. His father met him at the kitchen door. He shoved a hunk of bread and shoved a bag of food into his hands. "You can't surprise me anymore," the old baron explained.

"Why didn't you wake me up? Is he still here?"

"Oh, he's around here somewhere, but I don't know for how much longer."

"Oh sweet Jesus," Stiles prayed, starting for the bailey.

His father stretched out a hand to stop him, but it didn't quite reach him. "Wait!"

Stiles' mind couldn't focus on his father's face with visions of the king taking this chance to ditch his extra baggage playing through his mind. "I talked with His Majesty earlier, and I want you to know that you have my blessing. You know what you're doing," said the old baron, slowly and meaningfully, with a smile so forced that it finally moved Stiles out of his head.

He drew his father into a firm hug and replied, "Of course. Of course. Thank you."

Then the Stilinski's nodded and patted each other on the back a few times before pulling away. "Godspeed," the elder said in a thick voice that Stiles could only acknowledge by nodding again.

A horse whinny sounded from the bailey, and the panic of Derek leaving him behind crashed down on Stiles as strongly as if it had never lifted. "I have to go."

"Yes. Yes, I know."

Stiles turned and ran. He rounded the corner of the main hall just in time to see Derek take the reins from a stable boy. Stiles exhaled long and hard, bending over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath while the king regarded him with raised eyebrows. The spymaster raised his hand. "Morning." He gave himself another moment before he straightened up. "I'm ready; let's go."

"You don't have to come—" Derek started.

"No," Stiles answered in his hardest voice. "You want to travel fast and light, I get it, fewer people the better. But I'll be damned before you go off alone." He took the reins of his own horse and sprang up for proper illustration of fact.

Derek mounted, and Stiles could see that he still was dubious, so he shrugged at him and said, "And if you leave me behind somewhere, I'll only follow you."

The king's mouth pinched in reluctant acceptance. "Exactly," Stiles agreed. Derek grunted and led the way out. "Do you know the way to the duke's hold, Your Majesty?"

"Yes."

"Super! Good, I know too; just checking."

"We should hurry," Derek said, directing his horse off the road and onto a game trail at a canter. Stiles wondered when the king decided he was invincible, and then, sending up a quick prayer, followed suit.

The old baron wasn't watching. "Finstock!" he yelled.

The steward popped up out of thin air. "Watcha need, milord?" It was this unsettling quality of always being around the corner that kept the man employed despite his crazy eyes.

"Bring a bottle of wine to my chapel and then don't disturb me."

"Understood!"

He sat by the altar and didn't leave until the bottle was empty.

* * *

A journey of several days was ahead of them. A perfect time to pose pressing questions. Stiles opened with, "Sooo what's the dealio with you and Lady Lydia?"

Derek smirked. "Aren't you supposed to know everything, spymaster?"

"Yeah, but—"

"So you tell me."

Stiles made a frustrated noise and began. "Your uncle kills all her family except for her. She inherits tons of money, not to mention a few fancy titles packed away for her future sons, and becomes his ward. Then, surprising no one, they are engaged. You kill him before the marriage happens, and she becomes _your_ ward. No engagement. Am I missing anything?"

"Yes," Derek said bitterly. "You left out the part where she went goes insane."

"Ah," said Stiles. He'd thought he was being polite by skipping around that; it stung to see his omission stated so bluntly. Derek probably thought he'd forgotten, too.

The king continued. "None of your spies told you Lydia was having visions? Forgetting hours at a time?"

"No," replied Stiles, still shaken.

"You have no idea what she's been through. Or how far she's come. She deserves a better future than Whittemore can give her."

'Could be,' thought Stiles. 'But whatever the richest man in the kingdom, who has been courting her for over a year despite your disapproval, can give her is almost certainly better than what the Argents have in store for her.'

The Argents of course being the family who now determined the lives of everyone they had left behind in Beacon Hills. That included Lady Lydia Martin. Stiles didn't pursue the thought. Derek was darker and broodier than before, probably because he was sprinting after that same thought, watching it play out in all manner of unthinkable ways. Stiles tried to interrupt him. "Hales are good at keeping secrets."

"Have to be," the king explained. "No one else to trust." He sounded as if he were declaring as basic a natural fact as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Then he nudged his horse and pulled ahead before he could see Stiles send a giant eye roll his way.

'Right here!' he mouthed at the king's back. 'Literally right here, Derek Hale!' He wanted something to throw but had to make do with batting the air viciously.

There were forests red with the last leaves to speed through. Streams painted in gold from the warm afternoon sun shimmered and broke as their horses splashed through. Boulders glowing green from moss that were so large Stiles could only assume they were the bones of some fallen giant. Derek never showed whether it was the first time he'd passed through or the thousandth. Stiles watched him reach out to brush a branch with his fingertips as if he'd played around it all his childhood, as if it belonged in his memories, as if it belonged to him.

It was almost evening when Stiles broke out, "Oh God! Noooo!"

"What? What is it?" Derek wheeled his horse.

Stiles moved his mount faster. "It's nothing—"

"Stiles!"

He made a grumbling noise at the back of his throat. "I forgot my cloak. The only time I do a hard ride in months, and I forget my cloak."

"_What_?"

"You don't know what it's like! I see the knights wearing cloaks, I see the ladies swooning. I can't do any of that; do you know how impractical a cloak is for indoor wear? When you sit down, it just gets stuck under your ass, and when you lean forward, you choke yourself. It's cruel how the world has conspired to make me unattractive to the gentler sex."

Derek gave him a look of total disbelief. Stiles opened his mouth to try and explain his dilemma again, but the king reached out and smacked the back of his head. Hard. Stiles' forehead bonked against his horse's raised neck. "Really? _Really?_" he cried, shaking his hands.

"Let's move."

Stiles could only follow.

The Whittemores had built their fortune on the backs of thousands of peasants living on the hundreds of farms spread in a giant swath around the castle. After so many days under tree cover, the prospect of riding through clear land made Stiles want to hide in a hole and never come out. And to think, they were doing all this just to get to his least favorite person. "This is… just perfect," he complained once they reached the forest's edge.

Derek didn't look any happier. "This is where the Argents will really be looking for me."

"As opposed to any other castle, forest, field or general location in or out of the country?"

"Nobody asked you to come," Derek reminded him.

Hell no, he was not going to get away with that. "That's right, you didn't ask me, so a thank you would be nice. A really good, really heartfelt, 'Thank you, Stiles, for putting up with all my paranoia for days on end.'"

"So turn around and go home. I don't need you."

Stiles whistled low under his breath. "And see all my good work go to waste when you're captured? Hell no; you can't get rid of me that easily, My King."

Derek snorted. "Can we get moving and find some cover for the night now maybe?"

"No, I'm still on this 'thank you' idea. I like it." Stiles dropped the reins and crossed his arms to make his point.

"You've got to be joking."

Stiles licked his finger and held it up as if to test the wind. "Looks like a nope."

Derek concentrated on breathing. He found that if he turned his horse to face away from Stiles it was easier. Then he turned back. "Thank you," he said. His expression was clear and his eyes wide and earnest.

A grin spread slowly across Stiles' face. He held his arms out. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?" An answering grin spread tentatively across Derek's face as Stiles pulled up next to him to clap him on the shoulder. "Some topnotch bullshit like that?" Derek's smile disappeared. Stiles shrugged sympathetically. "Words are hard. Let's get you under cover somewhere safe." They started on their way. "You're lucky I'm a lover, not a fighter."

Derek repeated that slowly. "I'm lucky."

"You'll be lucki_er_ if you can find us a convenient haystack for you to live in while I go scope out the situation with Jackson."

"How about _you_ stay in the haystack while _I_ scope out the situation?" Derek was giving him the look.

"No, hang on; there's a method to my madness. Listen: you can't risk it. Jackson's a thousand times more dangerous than the Argents. He's probably given his guards orders to cut you down on sight. You won't even get a chance to open your mouth, let alone make your offer. It's got to be me." Jackson had no idea of his role as spymaster and believed he was as insignificant as a noble could get. In fact, he'd told Stiles as much to his face, many, many times. He would probably even automatically organize him with the Argents given his friendship with their rising star. It had to be him.

"No, he won't listen to you," said Derek. "We're going in at night, up and over the wall. We'll find him, talk to him, and get out fast if we have to."

Stiles had never heard anything dumber in all his life. "With that plan, only way we would ever get out alive is if the Savior himself carried us out." Derek was silent. "Hm?" Stiles tried, glancing over.

Derek's expression was stony and withdrawn. Stiles went cold. Of course. If the king couldn't get Jackson on his side, it wouldn't matter if there were an escape plan or not. The Argents would already have all the best players. It would all be over.

"Stiles!" Derek hissed, whipping out a hand to block him.

"What?" Stiles demanded, trying to hunch down and crane his neck about at the same time to find what had spooked him. "What is it?"

The king pointed at a group of ten mounted knights in black milling outside the door of a peasant's house not far from their ridge. "What do they look like to you?"

Stiles gulped. "Hunters."

Derek didn't bother to confirm the obvious. His voice was steely as he set out the truth. "They're going to see us in a second if we keep standing here."

"What do we do?" Stiles whispered, even though he knew it would make no difference. God, please, don't let it end like this.

"There are too many to fight off. We'll make a break for it," Derek decided, jerking his head towards the gate in the wall.

Stiles had liked it much better when they were pretending not to be at Jackson's mercy, but he found he couldn't say that properly with his heart beating so heavily that his chest hurt. His hands were feather-light and shaking as he gathered his sweaty reins closer. "Holy God," he croaked.

Derek began slowly, letting his horse have its head as it picked its way down the slope to the road. Stiles watched him wrap his fingers around the hilt of his sword. He didn't let go, and Stiles tried not to hyperventilate. Once on the road, Derek was completely exposed. He didn't even have a hood to obscure his face as they drew closer and closer to the group. Stiles heard himself begging, "Can we please just go now?"

"Keep slow for as long as possible," murmured Derek, lips barely moving. "They might not see me."

Their horses seemed to slow to a crawl. Stiles began to pray under his breath, eyes fixed on Derek, who in turn was scrutinizing their hunters. It happened in the blink of an eye. He didn't know what set him off but suddenly Derek was flying ahead of him as fast as his weary mount could go. Stiles beat his horse into a mad gallop after him, terrified by the shouts and hoofbeats just behind him.

A farmwife jumped off the road with her children, screaming. The gate was so small in the distance, and his horse was already flagging. "We're not going to make it!" Stiles shouted.

Derek drew a dagger and stabbed his horse in the rump. It sped up, whinnying in terror. That gave Stiles an idea. He mustered his courage and took a quick peak over his shoulder. Just as he had feared, their pursuers were gaining. Stiles took a deep breath and counted to five. Then he spun at the waist and flung a blade at the nearest rider. His aim was shaky, but it had the desired effect. The man screamed and lost his seat, pitching over the side of his horse. Stiles faced forward again to make sure he wouldn't do the same and slapped his horse on the rump on the way, trying to make up for lost ground.

The king's horse was failing. Derek took his knife to it again, but the animal couldn't do anything more than make a sound that made Stiles' heart clench. And then he wanted to cry, because Derek had pulled around. The king's chest was heaving, but his sword point didn't waver as he stared down the men sent to kill him. Stiles stopped next to him. "Please—"

Then Derek was gone, howling a battle cry as he spurred his bloody mount forward once more. The hunters parted around the force of the king's charge, and it immediately cost the slowest his life when Derek lopped his head off with one long stroke. "Oh fuck," Stiles breathed when he realized that he too had already kicked his horse forward, had already drawn his sword, was already going in after the king.

The remaining eight closed in around them. "Stiles?" gasped Derek between breaths.

"Mm?"

"Thank you." Derek's sword flashed in the air, and a horse screamed.

Stiles clamped his reins in his teeth and dove at the nearest man. His sword punched under his mail and through his belly to come out red the other side. His swordmaster had always said he was quick, but he barely had time to pull back and deflect the next hunter's blade from crashing down on him. He pushed back with all his strength, and waited for the searing pain of the blow he wouldn't have time to stop.

Suddenly the pressure on his sword relented, because the man had an arrow in his throat. Stiles whirled about, blade extended to parry another attacker's thrust. There were none, only dead men slumped in their saddles or dragging from the stirrups with arrows sticking from their chests. Derek was still upright, barely, sword dangling limply from one hand. Stiles stared at him. The king stared back for a half second, and then Stiles could breathe again.

A man in a cloak nudged his horse between them, forcing Stiles to refocus and notice the band of thirty odd knights and archers gathered there. The man pulled his hood back. "You owe me," said Jackson.

"I'm surprisingly okay with that," Stiles answered, sagging in his seat. He was so happy he could die.

Jackson's men surrounded them, escorting them through the streets, up to the biggest building Stiles had ever seen. The weakness of being humbled wrenched at him under the shadows of the grand white arches and brightly colored windows of Jackson's home. He couldn't do anything more than let his horse stagger blindly after Derek's.

They dismounted. Jackson led the way inside, speaking over his shoulder. "They'll lead you to your rooms; you two look like Hell." His voice echoed down the corridor, punctuated by the snapping of his boots on the marble floors as he left them to his servants. "You better have a good explanation about why you're alive and bringing Argent knights on to my land!"

"Yeah, not our fault!" Oh ick. If that was the best he had, he better be dying.

The opulence of a real room with a real roof was beyond Stiles' capacity for words, and it was far too soon before a knock on his door heralded an announcement that food was on the table. The smell of warm bread trumped the joys of the great indoors hands-down though, and he almost knocked a servant over in his rush to get at it. Jackson and Derek had no food on their plates but were already arguing.

"They ransacked forty-eight households looking for you," Jackson was saying. "It was tragic really; there was so much damage done. These peasants may never get their lives on track again." He popped a grape in his mouth and chewed, eyes wide as a baby's.

"Why are you telling me this?" Derek asked. He didn't sound angry, but Stiles knew him well enough at that point to say that he certainly wasn't thrilled.

"Well, I know you're as concerned about their quality of life as I am."

Derek's eyes narrowed. "What do you want, Jackson?"

"I just want the right person to pay for what happened." He said it clearly and emphatically, and there was no mistaking the malice in his eyes.

Slowly, Derek leaned his forearms on the table and drew forward. "You haven't seen my treasury around here, have you?"

Jackson snapped his fingers in the air. "Oh, that's right! The Argents chased you away from it. They chased you all the way here, actually, and now I have you." He locked his gaze and didn't flinch. "Funny."

The king was visibly making an effort to remain calm. "The money is all yours if you can get me back to Beacon Hills and—"

Jackson didn't even bother staying in character when he interrupted. "Why the fuck would I want your beat-up old coppers, Your Majesty?"

Derek grit his teeth as Jackson continued. "I don't need whatever pocket change your dead dad gave you on Christmas. I don't need your honors or your land or anything, not a single goddamn thing, that you can give me, and I also couldn't care less if you die tomorrow, so tell me: why are you here?"

"I'm here," the king ground out, and Stiles' heart sank to the floor, because he knew what was coming next, "to offer you Lydia Martin in exchange for your men."

Jackson smirked as the tapping and swishing noise that came from a lady's walk sounded from a staircase. "I don't need anything of yours—" She emerged into the hall, a lady with red hair. "—especially when it's all already mine."

Lydia noticed Derek and stopped in her tracks. He stood up, staring. Her hand flew to her lips, but her smile was too big to cover. She broke into a run, throwing herself into her guardian's arms. "What are you doing here? What happened?"

Derek was stunned enough to limply accept her hug for a bit, and then he pushed her away, shaking her by the shoulders. "What are doing here? I left you at the castle."

She shoved his hands off of her. "We've been overrun by Argents, and you ask me why I'm _here_? What kind of question is that?"

"You're my responsibility," he reminded her.

"But you're not my father or my brother or even my uncle," she bit back. "I've got to take care of myself."

Jackson laughed as he said, "She's been here for two weeks."

"Two _weeks_?" Derek was almost yelling. Stiles, still the only person touching food, had difficulty swallowing his chicken.

Lydia withstood him, raising her chin with proud determination. "I wanted to."

Jackson stood and went next to her. "You see," he said, wrapping a hand possessively around her waist. "You can't trade me anything for my help. You're finished."

It was true. Oh God, it was true. They could get all the men that Lahey, Mahealani, Boyd and Erica could give, a best case scenario, and it still wouldn't be enough. Stiles put down his fork and knife and folded over his plate, staring down at it with his head in his hands. So weird to think a second ago the only thing that had really been on his mind was food. So stupid.

Lydia's eyebrows knit together delicately. "Finished?" she echoed.

Jackson scoffed. "Well, he's not using my money."

"Why not?" she asked, pulling back.

Jackson gaped at her. "What? '_Why?_' Because we'll all be dead before he sits back down on his throne!"

"So you're just going to sit here and do nothing," she accused.

"Give me one good reason," he demanded, arms akimbo.

"Oh, I'll give you more than that," she countered. "Derek has defeated imposters before, and I won't marry a coward who hides behind his walls and calls himself a man while his sovereign and almost father-in-law goes to war. That's not a reason, Jackson," she told him, her voice cut with a sarcasm that turned her flirtatious tone to acid. "That's an ultimatum."

There may as well have been no one else in the room as they stared each other down. Stiles couldn't look away, trying to interpret the subtle and fleeting angles of mouths and eyelids that were wars unto themselves. Then, with a flip of her hair, Lydia lifted her chin and walked towards Derek.

She didn't get two steps before Jackson held up a hand. "Wait!"

Lydia stopped, but didn't turn around, waiting for him to continue. Derek and Stiles could see the small smile of confidence playing on her lips, and they tried desperately not to pin all their hopes there. "Alright, Lydia," said Jackson, an angry noise almost like a growl rasping out from the back of his throat. "Alright. I'll do it."

The smile grew large and rewarding, and she gave it to Jackson. "Good." Then she looked back at Derek and asked sweetly, "How many men do you want, again?"

Jackson's eyes bugged out, realizing what he had just agreed to, and Stiles wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Why couldn't Lydia casually appropriate _his_ resources? Just to see how big the duke's eyes could get, Stiles asked, "How many you got?"

But Derek overrode him. "Gather as many as you can to you here. Send horses to Lords Boyd and Isaac and Lady Erica, tell them to join you. You have about two weeks."

Jackson stiffened at the idea of an army crawling all over his castle. "Why here?" he demanded.

"It's the biggest and best provisioned location within a clear march of Beacon Hills," Derek answered. "You can't avoid this."

Jackson slouched back down in his chair with a huff. Then his eyes narrowed as he refocused on a new soft spot. "Well, you can skip the messenger to Lord Isaac at least."

Derek bristled, sensing a trap.

Jackson smirked. What manners common humanity demanded and of which Jackson possessed little already were spread in an even thinner façade. His features seemed sharper to Stiles, like a blade swinging a coup de grace. "That's right, Your Majesty. Lord Isaac swore fealty to the bastard McCall two days ago."

The look on Derek's face. As if he'd reached for part of his soul, and it wasn't there. "_What_?" The question wasn't addressed to anyone in particular, just the world which had been so goddamn horrible to him all his life. He sank to the background of the conversation as his expression closed off like a door slamming shut.

Stile, without a thought in his head, said, "Don't call him that."

"Why the hell not? He's the enemy." Jackson shrugged like the lines hadn't been drawn yesterday.

As per usual, Jackson's knack for setting Stiles off and making him spit out ideas before they were fully formed worked like a charm. "Do you really think he's capable of this? All this? Scott _McCall_?"

Lydia pursed her lips as she tilted her head thoughtfully. "He is pretty stupid."

"He's an _idiot_," Jackson emphasized, stressing every letter of the word. "I wouldn't kneel to him if he cut my legs off."

Stiles opened his mouth with a rebuttal on the tip of his tongue, but it died there. It had sounded an awful lot like, "Yeah, well, I would." That was a can of worms he wasn't equipped to deal with. Being on the opposite side of a war with your best friend was a shady place where emotions where involved. He groaned, tilting his head back to address the rafters, "Why, Scott? Why?"

"Allison Argent," Lydia answered with her eyebrows doing an uncanny impression of her guardian's. "Duh."

"Yes, well, I mean besides that," Stiles said. "They've been courting for years with no bloodshed."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Derek asked, coming back to life to get in his face.

Stiles spread his arms helplessly. "I don't know, maybe because _everyone already knew_."

A look of deep misgivings descended over Jackson's face as he watched them. It made Stiles defensive and critical at the same time. Yeah, Derek was the king, period, end of story, but he could also still be human without spraining anything. Or at least he could tune in to mortal affairs from time to time. Stiles' anxiety, always humming in his gut like a rash, spiked savagely. The relief he had enjoyed only moments ago was left far behind. Welcome to Team Dysfunction, his thoughts bit out. We have neither cookies nor cake only fear for your life.

"Well," said Lydia, drawing everyone's attention. "This is awful dinner conversation. Let's deal with all the boring little details tomorrow, hmm?" She sat down and took a sip of wine, looking at them all over the rim of the glass and exuding prim logic.

Stiles shrugged and helped himself to another cut of chicken. It was very good, and his appetite had returned with a vengeance. The king and the duke sent each other calculating glances, each seeming to sense the other's mistrust, but Derek returned to his seat, and they all started eating.

It was only a few hours past sundown, but it was already freezing cold, and so Stiles was put in a bed with Derek. They were sharing a bed. Separated by mere inches. In a bed. Which, honestly, was not a big deal. Men shared beds all the time on the road or in winter— it was purely practical. Stiles had done it countless times without incident. But that didn't mean there couldn't be an incident. He was in a bed after all. With Derek.

"Are you unwell?"

"What? Unwell? No. Unwell, no, no, not me." He was well on his way to a bit of a boner, but that didn't count.

"Because you're bouncing, and the bed is shaking," Derek told him.

"Oh, sorry."

Derek grunted.

There was a silence that was just begging to be broken. "You know—"

"Go to sleep, Stiles."

"Sorry, sorry, just trying to get to know the stranger lying next to me."

Derek rolled over to study the back of Stiles' head. "I'm not a stranger," he said, and the sentence hung in the air like a banner.

Stiles didn't have the courage to roll over, just enough to quietly say the truth. "Yes, you are."

Derek didn't answer, and after a few seconds, he fell on his back to stare at the canopy overhead. Its embroidered hunting scenes of crimson and evergreen had faded to gray tonal swirls in the night. "My past isn't something you can just spy on for fun, Stiles."

Taking that as encouragement, he rolled over to look at the canopy too. "Well, that leaves your present and your future. Why haven't you married one of those princesses throwing themselves at you?"

"None of them pleases me."

Stiles made a face. "What does that mean?"

"It means none of them pleases me."

"Um, okay. Well, you know, from one bachelor to another, I guess I can get that. Sometimes you're looking for certain qualities, and when you don't find them— and women! It's like—"

Derek sighed. "You have no idea."

Stiles blinked. "Yeah?" Then he gulped as his mind galloped nowhere helpful. "What qualities are you looking for?"

"Silence."

It took Stiles a second, but then he groaned. "Are you kidding me? That's your joke?"

Derek chuckled, so, yes, apparently. "You wouldn't make a very good queen."

Stiles didn't really know what was going on at that point, but he felt insulted anyway. "I could if I wanted to!"

Derek's eyebrows were practically audible when he replied, "You think you'd make a good woman?"

Stiles' mouth opened and closed like a fish as his face grew red with the memory of certain vulnerable positions he'd imagined himself assuming under Derek. The king smiled into the night and rolled over to his side again, considering the engagement won. This riled Stiles' competitive streak. "Ah, you wouldn't want anyone else wearing a crown around you anyway," he groused.

"Nobody wants to be alone, Stiles," the king said, remarkably easily.

It reminded him that Derek was older, and suddenly he felt all the shortness of his seventeen years. His inexperience and guileless honesty were hot on his cheeks when he answered, "You're not."

A few minutes later, he was drooling on his pillow, and the king went alone to his dreams of nothing useful.

Stiles woke up on his belly with his limbs spread out to all four corners of the bed. He raised his head up a couple of inches and blinked blearily to the left and right. It took him a bit to recall why the king was by his bedside, pulling a shirt on over his head. The muscles of his torso flashed and disappeared underneath black linen. Stiles plunked face-first back into his pillow. Derek looked over at the source of muffled, unhappy groaning. "You kick," he said.

"We almost died—"

"I can't hear you with your mouth in a pillow, Stiles."

Stiles twisted his neck to look at Derek. He wasn't cogent enough for anything more demanding than a flat delivery. "We almost died, pretty much gave up twice and now you're complaining about me disturbing your beauty sleep?"

"You kick hard," he explained, rustling around for something or other.

Just a little longer, Stiles thought as he drifted, eyes falling shut. He murmured, "Should fuck me unconscious, I'd have less energy."

"What?" asked the king, distracted.

"Nothing." He spoke up. "I was just looking forward to a horrible day here with Jackson."

Derek grunted in agreement. "We'll leave soon."

"Please, God." Stiles groaned, fading further into his doze. The door closed behind the king, and Stiles got back to snoring.

He hadn't wanted to wake up in time for lunch. He knew it wouldn't be fun. But his stomach's loud complaints meant he didn't have a choice in the matter, although he almost turned back when he found the food getting cold on the table with no one there to eat it. Everyone was apparently competing to see who could be the most fashionably late and thus spare themselves the most trauma. Stiles decided he wasn't playing, and began helping himself.

Lydia and Jackson arrived soon after, and Stiles' chewing slowed down guiltily. "Help yourself," Jackson told him, not kindly.

When the king arrived, the duke stood up, as did Stiles, but his aim was escape. "No, Stiles," Jackson said with an inviting sweep of his arm. "Please stay seated. Attending the king is our duty."

Stiles looked to Derek, but he didn't say a word, only kept his eyes locked on Jackson as he pulled out a chair at the opposite end of the rectangular table. The king drank from his wineglass. Stiles could feel the radiating heat of the volcano from where he sat.

"Did you sleep well, my king?" Jackson asked, his voice sickly sweet. "Or did you have bad dreams of the Argents killing your family and taking your home?"

Lydia snapped, "Jackson!"

"It's probably really embarrassing, living on the mercy of other men," he continued, biting into an apple.

Derek wasn't known for his patience. "I am your king, and you are my lord. You would do well not to forget that."

Jackson's act dropped abruptly, and he made an oogedy-boogedy face, mocking him. "I don't see a crown landing on your head without me to put it there, so, 'Your Majesty,' I'll do whatever the fuck I want." He stood, raising his goblet in a toast. "To my future father-in-law! Long live the king!" He threw it back, and burgundy wine slopped out of the cup and down his bobbing throat to stain the satin of his collar. Then he extended the empty goblet out at his side with a straight arm. He paused for effect— the glaring eyes, the wine like blood dripping from his lips, the total selfishness of his posture and his life, all the _money_ he must have— before letting it fall to the stone with a bright clatter. He sprawled back in his seat without bothering to conceal that he was happy. Happily arrogant and arrogantly happy that the king was in his debt.

Pure, bilious hatred rolled off Derek like dark thunderheads. "I wish to God you were Scott's so I could rip you limb from limb. And you," he said, turning to Lydia. "If you were still my ward, I'd have your hair shorn, and you'd live out the rest of your days in a nunnery."

Lydia flinched visibly, because her life had been shaped and reshaped according to the whims of Hale men for a long time. Then she responded with a word Stiles had never heard a lady say before.

Derek's nostrils flared and with two steps his sword was at Jackson's throat. The duke reared back in his seat, scrabbling away from the blade. Stiles' mind worked furiously at the math of this equation. Jackson had insulted the king, and if Derek forgot the price of his throne, he might only accept forgiveness in blood. The king stood with his weight balanced to drive the point of his blade through Jackson's throat and damn the consequences. Everyone else in the tableau was painted into place by the duke's own inability to do anything other than suffer his lord's burning eyes. He was pinned and helpless.

So Derek had his dominance again. Stiles decided it was time to move things along. "Someone get us horses!" he called.

There were horses, some of the finest Stiles had ever seen, though they weren't for him to touch, and there was food, better than anything the palace budget could manage, but it was sausage and cheese yet again for them. He would have preferred rat kabobs at this point, but the king never acknowledged any of the Whittemore household's little slights. Possibly because it was beneath his dignity, but more probably because they simply didn't register after holding the lord of the manor at his mercy.

They had just mounted up in the bailey and were about to head out when Lady Lydia appeared, making a beeline for Derek. "I'm not apologizing to you," she declared with a proud toss of her hair. Her hands were on her hips as she glared up at him. "But don't you dare die out there. I'm not going to be the wife of some peasant and peel radishes or whatever for the rest of my life."

She was bitching in classic Lydia fashion, but then her right hand reached out to hold the reins of Derek's horse. She stood there a moment, running the leather nervously between her thumb and forefinger. Her eyes fixed on that small motion in a way that reminded Stiles inescapably of her notorious breakdown under Peter Hale's watch.

Lydia had slipped into her twilight zone, where the monster living in her head sometimes had a flesh and blood form. The king leaned over and reached out to pet her hair. "You don't have to do this for me, for the family."

The gesture took Stiles breath away. He couldn't believe it, and then was abashed that he'd underestimated Derek when Lydia seemed to have no doubts about his sincerity. "What family, Derek?" She asked desperately. "No one has my name anymore."

Derek's fingers plucked at cord from around her neck so that a pendant made of a large wolf canine was drawn out from under her dress. It lay in the sun on her bosom, making a statement with symbolism Stiles didn't fully understand.

"You wear the wolf. You are my family," he told her, eyes big and deep with meaning.

Lydia laughed a little. "The pack."

Derek nodded. "My pack," he repeated, adding a possessive unconsciously.

Stiles ducked his head, knowing that he was invisible in this moment with only room for two people but wanting to make the effort to respect its privacy anyway. After a second, Lydia squeezed the reins in a kind of goodbye hug, and Derek straightened in his saddle.

"I won't see you again until Beacon Hills is secure," he told her, sounding much more his old, thoroughly negative self again.

Perhaps she saw the transformation too, because she snorted, "God, some things never change." She stepped back to let Derek turn his horse.

"Stiles."

He cleared his throat. "Ready whenever you are, My King."

They nudged their horses forward, and Lydia watched the gate close behind them. The crossbar fell with a boom, but she didn't feel safe. She felt like Peter Hale was back over her shoulder again, whispering in her ear, so close it was like he was inside her ear, and that her voice to herself had become his voice. Lydia took a deep, shuddering breath and willed his ghost away, calling up instead the memory of Jackson's arms warm around her. "Long live the king. Long live the king," she whispered, meaning it.

What do Derek Hales talk about? Stiles wondered. They'd been within arm's distance of each other for the greater part of a week now, and the prospects for spending time in any way outside of hard riding were bleak. Derek Hales didn't discuss jousting, horses or feasts, like Stiles had kind of figured a proper king would. Nor did he discuss the weather. Stiles had tried that too.

So there was a lot of silence whenever Stiles ran out of words. He didn't like it. There were too many unpleasant things lurking in the silences. The green of the grass, the trees, the bushes— silences refracted and grew bigger in that monotone world. Stiles had never thought of himself as a townie before, but he would have given any one of his limbs to be sitting safe in his library instead of charging about the countryside.

The king had said something. "Huh? What?"

Derek cleared his throat and spoke up a bit. "The rout at the river. It was a long time ago when my father was on the throne." His eyes, a different shade of green, went to Stiles'. "You asked me what my favorite victory was. I said I didn't know, but."

He broke his gaze and didn't see when Stiles smiled at him. "I'd have thought it was when you finally got Peter Hale. My dad told me how you did it, said it was amazing, how you got his guard to basically just hand him over to you."

There was a long pause where Stiles realized that equating killing a family member with a great victory could be a conversational no-no. But he was also starting to acclimate to Derek's bumpy communication style, so he held his breath and hoped for the best. He was rewarded when Derek finally responded, "When I was at the river, I was thirteen, and I killed my first man. I hated it."

Stiles struggled for the right response. "Look, I'm—"

Derek's voice was coming from miles and eons away. "It was barely a battle at all. We were just driving out some raiders, I wouldn't even had been there if my father hadn't thought it was time for me to have some experience in battle. He gave me some men, even. Most of them died."

"Why are you telling me this?" Stiles asked softly.

"Because you asked," Derek replied. Then he added, "And because, after the battle was done, I sat down at my table with my family, and the next time I celebrated a victory, I sat at a table across from my uncle's head on a stick ."

Derek was always transforming in front of Stiles, vacillating between a king and a man, the father of his people and a son. Someone who lived in a palace, and someone who squatted in the half-destroyed house where his family had burned. These glints cowed him, and most of the time he felt ill-equipped to plumb the depths. Problem was that he'd already dug himself quite a depth. He was up to his elbows in Derek-feels, and quite honestly he was probably just going to keep on digging despite it all.

"I don't know why anyone would want to be king if he wasn't already one." A black curtain drew across Derek once more, obscuring his features, and he scowled. "Scott McCall is an idiot if he can't see that."

Stiles wasn't sure about the correct reaction to all that and since hugging was out due to the horseback situation, he eventually, in retrospect, decided that it was a fortunate thing that the ambush happened just then.

It was all very simple. Four knights on fresh coursers emerged from the forest and boxed them in. Neither fight nor flight was an option. Both Derek and Stiles were bound and gagged before a sword ever made it out of a sheath.

The knights didn't talk much as they rode hard down a wide road towards what Stiles could only presume was the Lahey castle. But of course he couldn't very well make inquiries with a rag tight across his mouth, and his captors weren't carrying any arms to identify them as Lahey men, so he could only really say that they were heading in roughly the right direction. Eventually, Lahey arms floated into view above the treetops on a high turret and confirmed his guess.

King and baron were hustled straight from the bailey to a small dark cell that reeked of stale air and piss. At least their gags were removed, which was the next best thing to sweet freedom for Stiles. "Fuck you, asshole!" he railed as his ankle was shackled to the wall by a chain no more than three feet long. "Damn you all to Hell!" His jailer gave the chain a hard pull that sent Stiles sprawling and then took his leave. The door, a solid piece of oak, shut with an echoing boom followed by a series of clicks as it locked.

Derek didn't say a word.

Stiles didn't bother to get up.

"Well," he began after a few seconds to get his wind back. "What do we do now?" he asked, turning his head on its side to get an oddly angled view of his king.

Derek had arranged himself with his back against the wall and legs stretched out in front of him with the ankles crossed. His eyes were searching every nook and cranny of the room as thoroughly as if he were prying apart the stones with his fingertips. "We wait," was his answer.

Stiles sighed and turned his head back to look at the ceiling. "I was hoping you wouldn't say that." Waiting was not his forté.

* * *

It was a blessing to finally leave that prison behind with Stiles in it. He was impossible to ignore, especially after he switched from knock-knock jokes to reciting _La Chanson de Roland_ in bad French.

All the same, I couldn't look him in the eyes when an escort came for me and not for him. "Where are you taking him?" he asked in a rush, getting to his feet and stretching his chain to the limit. He was still five feet away from me. "Where are you taking him?!"

"I'll be back, Stiles," I called when the jailers didn't answer. "Don't worry."

"Don't fucking tell me that!" he shouted as I left the room flanked by six men. A bag slipped over my head. I heard the slap of his palm against stone, and he yelled my name, the one I hadn't heard in a long time. "Derek!" Then the door closed, and there was nothing I could do for him.

I followed my escort's pushing and prodding like a dog, because I suspected they were taking me right to where I needed to be. Still, when the bag was removed, I had to shield my blinded eyes in a way that made me anxious with my own weakness. At least my hands were untied and the guards had withdrawn. This meant, I realized, blinking at the form of the Viscount Isaac Lahey coalescing in front of me, that I could kill him.

"Sorry about the bag," he said, waving vaguely at me as he took a sip of wine. "It was as much for your safety as mine."

"Not sorry enough," I growled and threw a punch at his belly. Isaac twisted so that it hit a bit off center, but I didn't care. It felt good to hurt the little shit however I could.

"Well, now it will just look more realistic," he said, huffing out a laugh. He placed his cup neatly back on the table. Then, quicker than I remembered him capable of, his fist cracked against the same spot I'd just aimed for on him.

"What?" I demanded, going for his jaw.

Isaac jerked out of the way, answering, "Prisoner suspected of being Derek Hale is brought to me for identification," I interrupted him with a kick to the thigh, "but he beats me unconscious and escapes."

"I like that," I admitted. I swept his legs out from under him. He'd been making me feel old, dancing on his toes like that.

It was gratifying to see him splayed and struggling for breath. I put my boot on his chest and leaned down to get a good look at his face. Isaac met my gaze, laughter dying. "Did you really give up on me that easily, My King?"

I could smell the hurt and worry on him. I let him feel it a little longer before I gave him a hand up. It was nice to see that malicious lopsided smirk again.

Isaac leaned back, ankles crossed with arms straightened behind him so that his hands were braced the edge of the table. He cocked his head at me. "Even if Scott never tries to hit me when he sees me," he drawled.

"He probably will if he finds out about this," I told him, crossing my arms.

Isaac did a good impression of nonchalance. "'When,' not 'if,'" he corrected.

I inclined my head. "Alright then. Tell me about this plan you seem to have."

"Simple. I stay behind and join McCall, but report to you, of course."

No one had ever accused Isaac of having too much regard for honor. But I had any number of reasons to not like this. "I don't want to leave you behind."

He made his eyes wide and innocent. "Oh, I'll behave myself."

I grunted.

"Look, you can't exactly afford to refuse me, Your Majesty."

That was true. I couldn't. "Isaac, you could be richer than Duke Whittemore if you sent the Argents my head—"

"I wouldn't do that, never," he cut in, eyes flashing. He reached beneath his collar and tore out a familiar pendant. "Look at this," he hissed. "Do you remember this? Do you?"

"Do you?" I returned.

Isaac's jaw flexed as he gritted out the story. "You, me, Erica, Boyd, Lydia. Lesser lords and sad, forgotten ladies who you took hunting one day when Peter Hale was just beginning to get his men together. You took us into the woods, faster than I'd ever ridden before, after a stag you said you wanted. We found it— ripped open by the biggest wolf I'd ever seen. You told us to kill it." Isaac raked in a harsh breath. "It was enormous, black, with yellow eyes like a demon. We just wanted to get out of there before our horses threw us. But you dismounted alone, drew out your sword and killed it, right in front of us. You broke off its canines and gave them to us. You promised our lives would change completely if we followed you, like a pack of wolves follows their alpha."

Isaac's voice had changed. His eyes had grown deeper too, and I hummed my approval. He smiled. "I am still your beta if you are still the alpha, My King."

"I am."

His smile grew wider. "Where can I find you, then, once I'm done howling at the moon?"

"Wherever Scott McCall is." I leveled my gaze at him. "Promise me you'll come, when it's safe."

Isaac poured the last of the wine from a clay jug and handed the cup to me. "Have you ever known me to miss a good fight?"

He took the cup from me when I was finished and handed me the jug in its place. "The baron's cell was accidently left unlocked. He stole some horses and provisions and is waiting for you by the small gate in the west wall." Then Isaac fell to one knee before me and bowed his head. "Godspeed, My King."

"God bless you, Isaac." I raised the jug and crashed it down hard on his head. I stepped around his limp body and made my way to the gate.

Stiles yelped when I emerged from the shadows to take my horse's reins. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Your Majesty, what in the fuck is going on?"

He held out my sword, which had been confiscated earlier. Its weight at my hip put me at ease. We led our horses out the gate just like any other normal member of traffic flow and mounted up once we'd cleared the congested bridge moat. "Oh, and I'm fine, incidentally, thanks for asking," he muttered.

I ignored that comment in favor of briefing him. "You have a new spy."

"Oh, super! And where are we going?"

"Back to Lord Whittemore."

"Oh, shit! Why are we doing that?"

"So I can kill Scott McCall."

* * *

The evening was grey and flat overhead. The day had been the coldest yet, veined with winds that bit with the threat of frost. When Derek announced that it was safe enough for a fire that night, as only Lahey and Whittemore men were likely to come through the territory, Stiles moaned with visceral relief, "Oh, thank God."

The king stopped them the next time the trail passed by a clearing that had been trampled clear beneath the feet of hundreds of travelers. There was a dark ashy crater in the middle flanked by a log. As good a spot as they were likely to find outside at least. Stiles had already groused at Derek about his reluctance to stop at a house and get a warm meal. "You won't have to say a word," he had promised, "I can say you're mute. My charm's more than enough for two people, so you needn't worry, just sit back and relax and go to sleep under a real roof, without shackles, for once—"

Derek had cut him off, "It's too dangerous."

"More than starving or freezing to death?" he had rebutted, to no response.

"You get the firewood, I'll supervise," Stiles called after the king as Derek disappeared into the bracken with nary a snap of a dry twig.

"Just look after the horses, Stiles."

Righty-o. Stiles removed the packs and tack. A rope and a tree secured them with plenty of fodder in easy reach. All simple tasks that let his mind flit about like a mad butterfly. He wished he'd raided Jackson's library for something solid to focus on for a bit. All of this quiet time was giving him mental cabin fever— his thoughts ricocheted in jittery arcs from Derek to Scott to his father to the squirrels in the trees to _The Symposium _to hoping fervently he hadn't left his book of naughty nun stories somewhere in his office. Not that Scott would be surprised. But then again maybe he would, Stiles thought, rehashing Scott's character with clenched teeth for the hundredth time. He'd be doubting his doubts in a few minutes, because really Stiles couldn't rely on the old assumptions that make up old friendships anymore. He wished he could just give himself over to hating Scott. It would be much more convenient and make him feel twenty times less weak and disloyal. Stiles called up Scott's image in his mind, the sweet eyes and wonky jawline, and tried to imagine him with a crown on or spearing babies or something.

Derek's reemergence interrupted his mind experiment. The king's hard eyes were assessing him over an armful of sticks and kindling. Stiles discovered he was standing in the middle of the clearing doing absolutely nothing useful, blushed and then grinned to cover it. Derek transferred his attention to fire-building and set up a little pile of dry twigs in the cinders of hundreds of old fires with balanced movements. Even when his fingers slowed and stiffened as the evening chilled, Derek looked omnipotent and omniscient in the small details of propping up one twig with another. He was happiest when he had his victories, even the tiny ones.

Stiles sat down on a log and propped his hand on his chin. He watched— supervised— and let it dawn on him that Derek was a very good man. He caught himself holding his breath as the king crouched low to nurse the lick of smoke into a flame. "You're good at this camping stuff," he commented.

"I have servants to light the fires in the palace," Derek answered. But of course that was the opposite of an answer and really just one of those things he thought he had to say when he couldn't offer the right emotional information.

Stiles nodded like that was the response he'd expected. The anxiety that normally twitched when Derek wasn't precisely a king anymore, but an unknown human variable, stayed quiescent. Instead, his heart broke, and he slid off his log to kneel opposite Derek. He reached out and intercepted his hand as the king grasped for more sticks.

Derek's eyes met his, and Stiles couldn't let go. "Can I do this for you?" he asked.

The king jerked his hand away. "No, I'll do it."

Stiles watched helplessly as more sticks went on the fire, crushing the flame for just a second before it flared up again and swallowed Derek's offering whole.

Every day spent isolated and exposed on the road was another day the Argents had to fuck up all their plans. The nights were getting frostier. The king's horse was limping. Stiles was mourning the death of innumerable taste buds, lost in the name of their unchanging diet of sausage and cheese. And he didn't want it to end.

Wake up, eat, pack up, ride, stop, eat some more, ride some more and then stop for the night. There was a rarefying power to Derek's presence and a purity in their time together. Stiles felt physically stronger every day and more clear-headed, too.

Of course, in the background there was always the war. But the hard rhythm of their days pounded out all non-essentials. Stiles' worries felt ungrounded compared to the new callouses on his fingers that the reins had given him. He filled Derek's long silences listening to the sound of the wind through the tree branches and dreaming about riding on to the earth's edge with him.

When they eventually emerged from the woods onto a hillock that rose over a spread of farms, the Whittemore castle tower loomed ahead of them. Derek stopped his horse, and Stiles pulled up beside him. They looked down on countless houses and little villages— a staggering number of people after their days of solitude.

The king looked at the columns of smoke rising from just inside the wall. "That's where my army is."

"Back to reality," Stiles commented, meaning to sound cheerful.

"Yes," replied Derek.

They stood there a little longer. Stiles glanced over at him. "No time like the present?"

Derek shook himself awake and hummed his assent. They started down to a proper road that looked positively luxurious to them now, after a lifetime on thin trails.

Suddenly, Stiles pulled his reins. "Wait, wait, hold up a second!"

Derek didn't even pause, instead calling out over his shoulder, "What now? I want to make it before sundown."

"For someone with way too much drama, My King, you have no sense of occasion!"

Derek halted with a sigh. He turned his horse about and held his hands up in a helpless gesture. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Stiles translated. "You're tired. You've been wearing the same clothes for over a week. You've got this scraggly beard thing going on. You're still the king, but," he leaned forward and tried to break the truth gently. "You don't look like the kind of king these men need."

Derek's nostrils flared as he breathed out hard. It made sense and he knew it, but that didn't mean he had to like it. "What do you want me to do, Stiles? Risk stopping at an inn?"

His spymaster grinned broadly. "Come on, when do I ever not have a plan up my sleeve?"

"I hate this plan," Derek complained later as Stiles squished a raggedy wide-brimmed hat over his head. He'd stolen it off a scarecrow— "It's serving a higher purpose now," he had insisted when the king's eyebrows had risen querulously.

"Well," Stiles began, stepping back to judge the effect. "It's not your crown."

"Oh, really?"

Stiles shook his head sympathetically and tried to suppress a smile. Derek was deep in a black mood and had even refused to do anything more with his sword than conceal it a bit with a blanket. Not a good time to smile. "I still don't see why—" the king began.

"Yeah, yeah, you'll thank me for it later; come on." Stiles nudged him in the direction of his horse. Derek mounted up and then sunk hunched and miserable in his seat, looking for all the world like a sullen manservant such as a baron might keep. "That's the spirit!" Stiles chirped, hopping up as well.

The king took off ahead of him without another word. But when they came within sight of the wall, Stiles was honor-bound to speak up over his hesitations and tell him, "Your Majesty, it will look odd if I follow my servant into the castle." His glee was fading into pangs of guilt over witnessing Derek suffer indignity upon indignity. When the king gritted his teeth and let him pass in front, Stiles whispered, "I'm sorry," although it wasn't enough.

They rode silently up to the gates, where they cut the line of peasants laden with firewood for the market and men with scythes reporting for duty. Stiles' horse and sword meant carte blanche privilege here. "Baron Stilinski and manservant John Smith," he announced to the guard, who had scrabbled to his feet to greet the noble. "Is there someone here who could direct me to the duke?"

The man bowed his head. "Of course, my lord."

His shout was answered by a lad of thirteen with a bowl cut and a uniform three times too large for him. "If you would follow me, Baron," he said, with his hand at his waist to keep his pants from slipping.

They passed through the same streets as they had not so long ago. They were more crowded than ever with men of all shapes and sizes. There was bawdy singing from the taverns and drunken bodies propped up snoring against walls. Stiles was unsettled as he followed the boy. So this was war. He remembered that he'd been lucky to inherit his father's position at as late an age as he had.

As soon as they were inside the door, Derek ripped his hat off and threw it on the ground. The liveried attendant who had admitted them to the keep looked like he was about to have a heart attack. "Never again," the king growled at Stiles.

He tucked his chin down. "Of course not, Your Majesty."

"Take me to the duke," he commanded the attendant.

"Yes, Your Majesty," he squeaked, before setting off on a fast walk down a hallway. They appeared to be in Jackson's personal wing when they arrived in a small courtyard. Harsh clangs rang and echoed between its high walls whenever Jackson's blunted longsword met that of his sparring partner, Earl Mahealani.

Lydia, watching on the sidelines with her ladies, interrupted the attendant's announcement. "Derek!" she shouted with a smile. She crossed blithely through the middle of the yard, forcing her fiancé to break. She gathered Derek in a hug. "Thank God you're safe," she whispered before stepping away and readjusting her dress. Stiles held out his arms for a hug of his own with a hopeful grin, which she ignored.

Jackson wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand as he considered them. "So you're not dead yet," he observed.

Stiles gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up. "Wow, Your Grace, very good."

"Oh, shut up, Stiles, you don't matter."

"Jackson!" Derek barked at him so suddenly that the duke, who wasn't used to having his Christian name bandied about so coarsely, jolted. "How many men?"

"Some eight thousand," he answered with a defensive shrug. Derek stared at him until he cracked and continued, "About seven and a half thousand have reported, and I expect three hundred more before the week is done."

Derek faced Danny expectantly. "I brought four thousand with me," he said. "They are all I can spare."

The king nodded. "Has Lord Boyd or Lady Erica arrived yet?"

"No," said Jackson, "but they've sent word that they'll be here as soon as they can."

Lydia took advantage of the pause in the conversation to address the attendant. "We will eat a little earlier this evening. Prepare their rooms, too."

"Yes, my lady," the man said with a bow before he disappeared.

Stiles had some time alone in his room before dinner. He'd already changed into borrowed clothes, already tested out the bed, already chased a mouse out. It would have been fine if he could nap, but there was no way he'd take a chance on missing dinner. Truth was that he felt isolated after so many days of constant companionship. He found himself pacing the room in figure eight designs before he admitted defeat. "Fuck it." Stiles set off down the corridor to Derek's room. He was about to address the guardsman at the door when the king emerged, and suddenly he couldn't find his footing. "Ah, hello there, Your Majesty."

"Stiles," Derek answered, locking the door behind him. Then he turned and gave him a quick smile.

That false note threw Stiles off even farther. The balance of friendship between them did not need smiles. They were a cheapening move so late in the game. At the same time, how could he honestly complain? He smiled back, and followed the king down a staircase. "You are like a rainbow," he commented.

"I am not like a rainbow, Stiles."

"Oh yes, you are. It's rain, rain, all rain, only rain for days and then the sun comes out for a bit and then bam! All these colors."

Derek grimaced although he knew he was being teased, and maybe even that Stiles was overdoing it. "That's really…"

"One hundred percent accurate? Yeah-huh, you missed me this last hour; I can feel it in my spleen."

Sure, this was a lot of bullshit, but Derek had a genuine little grin, not one that made Stiles' hair rise on the back of his neck, when he replied. "No, I didn't."

The dinners were awkward and horrible until Boyd arrived, followed shortly by Erica, who jumped into Derek's arms with a happy laugh.

Then the dinners got worse. There were tens of thousands of soldiers eating Jackson's food and getting into trouble with his serfs' daughters, and if Stiles wanted to care just a little about what Jackson cared about, he could understand the duke's anxiety. But he didn't want to care. The man was kicking him out of his cushy bed, which for days he had only relinquished for food and privy purposes. And that one time when he was dragged out to be fitted for some new plate armor. Stiles had hated that, facing the fact that he'd be killing more people sooner rather than later.

Stiles complained to an unhearing Derek as they made their way to their horses. "I'll have bruises on top of my bruises by the end of the day, just watch me. I wasn't built for this; I'm an indoors kind of guy."

Derek was resplendent, covered head to toe in shining gold-embossed dress armor. Some ermine had even been scrounged up and sewn onto a cloak. The rest and relaxation had done him good too. He looked more majestic, high, mighty, _kingly_ than Stiles had ever seen him. Result: Stiles' tongue was no longer his own. "You look like a giant candlestick or something."

Somewhere on the road, Derek had chucked his capacity for surprise at Stiles overboard. "I thought I looked like a rainbow."

"No, you _are_ a rainbow; you _look_— today, currently, right now— like a big old gold candlestick my grandfather used to put out for saints' days. Haven't you been listening to me?"

They were out of the keep, joining the melee of lords dressed in their best. Derek had a huge white destrier in matching gold caparisons waiting for him. Stiles' more modest mount was further down the train of important people, but he'd be damned if he didn't get a front row seat to this view for as long as possible. Derek refused a squire's offer to fetch him a mounting block and pulled himself up on his own. People looked his way immediately and then moved faster without noticing why.

"So pretty," commented Stiles in a stupid nasal voice, batting his eyelashes.

"Go away," Derek pronounced clearly.

Stiles broke character and patted the king's plate-covered thigh neatly. "No worries! Break a leg out there."

"I'm not acting, Stiles," said the king, but he couldn't really believe it. It must have shown on his face, because Derek made a disgusted noise and moved his horse away. Stiles rolled his head back and sighed. Things were a bit bumpy with fancy Derek after weeks of mountain-man Derek. Sorry not sorry.

The march began quickly, as they had a column of so many thousands of men to move. The king led the way with trumpeters and drummers. Women and children cheered from the windows as he passed. From his seat, he could catch glimpses of Derek raising a hand in a formal wave, the stationary, brusque kind only the very important could seem to pull off.

That was how they left civilization. Then it was marching and cold and rain for days. Stiles hated it. It was nothing like riding with the king. In fact, he never even saw Derek except for the dinners and strategy meetings he was sometimes invited to. He felt blind and stupid during those, because he hadn't gotten a report in days from any of his men. No one knew where to find him, and he could hardly send someone to go inform them without compromising everyone's safety.

The most interesting information he got was a note from Isaac, which was technically addressed to Derek but was rerouted through Stiles. He was pleased to see the results of not being entirely idle, but all the same, there was only so much joy to be gotten from: "At Beacon Hills with the Argents and twenty thousand. Don't bother attacking their lands. They've got enough stocked up to last three years."

So they did the only thing they could do, which was set siege to Beacon Hills. It was late evening, but tents were still being pitched in the fields where the wheat for their bread was grown when Stiles wandered into the tent across from the king's that they were all calling HQ.

"We're not prepared at all, Your Majesty," Erica was complaining.

"That's why they're doing it," drawled Jackson.

Stiles chirped, "Doing what?"

"We have enough men,"said Derek, "just make sure they're all ready at dawn."

"Hello? Am I invisible?" Stiles tried again.

Boyd tossed him a scrap of vellum. Stiles read it and let out a low whistle. Apparently not all of Isaac's information had reached him. "Well, this sucks."

"We're so screwed," said Erica, more to herself than anyone else.

"No. We're not. I didn't come back here to roll over at the Argent's first move." Derek stared at them. "Now go and ready your men.".

They left and went about their business.

"Goodnight!" called Stiles. "Phew! Too many a long meeting today, time to hit the hay. Got to get up bright and early for the big day tomorrow!" He yawned wide enough to swallow a passing eagle as he waved to the guards posted by his tent.

Once the flap had swung shut behind him, he fell to the ground by his pack and began rifling through it. Half his shirts were strewn across his room before he found what he was looking for. He grinned, tucked it into his right boot and then fit a knife into his left. Another blade went up his sleeve for safety's sake. A moment later he was shimmying out under the back of his tent to startle a pair of drunk camp followers who gawked at him as he went on his way.

Stiles glanced at the moon. Plenty of time. He set off through the endless crowds of men, some with swords, some with sickles, drinking around bonfires. Boys dwarfed by their spears hunched underfoot. More and more were pouring in even as it was getting late, and shouts rang out every so often as men who traded at the same markets recognized each other.

He kept his head down and walked fast. When he had finally left them behind he was standing almost in the shadow of the city wall. Stiles padded cautiously through the ramshackle refugee lean-tos with their ghost population of paupers and madmen. Nobody noticed him.

There was a sewer drain lodged a few feet below Beacon Hill's wall. The noxious brown sludge it normally vomited out was but a shadow of its former self, a meek trickle of foul-smelling, watery piss. Stiles blew all the air out of his cheeks. He supposed he should be grateful to the thoughtful Argent who had plugged it up and thus saved him from plunging headfirst into a raging torrent of shit. But he couldn't help but be nervous that someone had already taken precautions against sappers and other suspicious folk— like Stiles. It didn't bode well.

He grabbed the top of the drainage grate and pulled while kicking at its corner. With a few solid knocks he was panting, but it had yet to budge an inch.

"Fuck you, Peter Hale," he complained to the moon as he caught his breath. In the cleanup after Derek's victory, it had come out that this was the usurper's own personal escape route. Never let it be said that the man hadn't been willing to get dirty. This wouldn't have been the worst way to go on their own mad dash from the castle, but it definitely wasn't the best. Derek's route had worked pretty great, actually.

His own route. Stiles groaned. The king had been so sure-footed as he'd led them blindly into the tunnels. His planning shouldn't have surprised him at all really— but he wasn't surprised, he was angry. Furious that the king had harbored doubts from the start.

He took his rage out on the stuck gate, swinging his boot at it. His foot connected with the top of the grate, and then he jumped a foot when it creaked open a ways. "The Hell?" he murmured, going through the motions with his hands in the air. He oriented himself one way, then another— oh God. He rolled his head back and groaned.

"I know, I know," he groaned to the specters of his father and the king, who were looking down at him with identical pairs of critical eyebrows as Stiles pushed at the _top_ of the grate while pulling at the _bottom_ corner. It came loose without a sound.

Crouching in the pitch black stench, he propped the grate back up behind him, mostly to impress his imaginary observers with his thoroughness. Then he turned down the tunnel on his hands and knees and tried not to think so much about what he was touching. He prayed that it was all going to be worth it in the end, because if the Argents had—

Hey, no worries, there it was. Time had just flown by. He must be more nervous than he'd realized, and that didn't actually bear imagining. But this was definitely it. Crossing himself, Stiles said a quick prayer to Saint Jude, he of lost causes, and then stood up in a thin shaft. His shoulders had just enough wiggle room to allow him to raise his arms and clutch at the rough stone if he fit himself in diagonally. He jumped, fingers sliding on the cold rock without finding purchase. Stiles fell back down again and almost slipped on the liquid shit that was beginning to freeze beneath his boots.

The specters of his father and the king were joined by Jackson, sneering just like he had the time he'd whacked Stiles hard on his back with the flat of his sword when they'd been squires. Stiles had fallen flat on his face in the dust, with his nose just an inch away from his swordsmaster's boot. The man hadn't even blinked. Even at age eleven, Jackson Whittemore could have had him killed and his family stripped down to field hands in the north country. Stiles had understood it in childhood as clearly as he understood it as an adult and he didn't blame his swordsmaster for telling him not to be so clumsy. Just as potently, he had known suddenly and to his marrow that justice was a rare, precious thing you didn't just find on the side of the road.

Stiles jumped higher. His grip held this time, and, straining, he managed to lift his body until his feet and legs were braced along the walls of the shaft. He looked down. Black. Up was black too; everywhere, every side, only black. Stiles pressed his legs hard against the stone until he felt the freezing cold eat into his thighs, stretched out his pinched fingers and clawed a few inches higher. There were no handholds, which was one more difference between Derek and his uncle. Peter had made plans to leave and never come back, but the King would probably have built a fucking spiral staircase in here if he'd known about it. Derek just didn't give up that easy, so neither would Stiles.

Eventually, his head met something hard above him. Stiles hissed and slid down a few terrifying inches, but thankfully there was a convenient hole cut out in some wood over his throbbing head for him to hang on to. Stiles blinked and looked up at a pale circle of light. It left spots in his eyes.

Bracing himself very, very firmly, he pushed up on the wood. It rose on hinges set in the wall, just like Stiles had seen it do years before when he'd checked out Peter Hale's secret exit for curiosity's sake. He pushed himself up, and with a bit of careful squirming, got his feet back on firm stone. He felt as weak as if he hadn't eaten for a month. The first thing he did was turn and release a thick knotted rope from its hidey-hole by the shaft. It snaked down into the black, fixed by an iron ring. Stiles made sure to test it with a few sharp tugs. All set for his daring escape. He lowered the wooden cover and voila! Nothing to show that this privy was anything special.

His muscles were sore and rubbery after his climb. Stiles straightened his back, stretching out his arms overhead and giving them a shake. He regarded the sight in front ahead of him and amended his earlier thought. It was a nice privy, private, with sweet herbs strewn on the floor. It was the king's after all. Stiles giggled, because he'd just infiltrated the castle via Derek's toilet. For a shitty plan, it had gone rather well. He hadn't even been shat upon.

That being said, there was definitely a squatter who had taken up residence in the king's quarters.

"Shut up, Stiles," he hushed himself as he broke into giggles again. The puns just kept coming.

Focus. There was a snoring man in the next room who needed to stay fast asleep as Stiles tiptoed by. It was a pretty tricky situation honestly, as whoever had called the king's bed was likely to be very important and have lots of guards posted to stop just the kind of shenanigan Stiles was in the middle of pulling. Thankfully, there was nothing he was more used to these days than making stupid plans work.

Stiles gingerly opened the door to the king's chamber, just a crack, and peeked through. There he stayed until his pent-up breath escaped in one long exhale. The Argent's king was sleeping like a baby in a bed three times too large for him. Scott McCall didn't look like a demon or a puppet, but Stiles couldn't say that he looked like a friend either. He just looked bizarre— almost irrelevant— swaddled up in a big comfy bed in a big warm room with big cozy tapestries blanketing the walls. It was all too symbolic a contrast to handle while Derek was freezing his nuts off in a field at that very moment.

Stiles took his eyes off of Scott and found the door he'd followed the king through on that fateful night. It swung silently open, and he disappeared inside, shutting it behind him. He slid his right hand along the wall while he held his left hand up at forehead level. The last thing he needed was to be knocked silly. Stiles kept moving past the exit Derek had directed them down and didn't stop until his right hand slipped off into empty space. He turned, barely taking a full step forward before his left hand encountered hard stone. His fingertips explored the outer rim of the block. There was a crevice at the bottom that was slightly deeper than the others, so he lowered himself on hands and knees to give the lowest block a nudge. The squeak from the hinges sounded like a lion's roar. Stiles sat back on his heels to take a few deep breaths and calm his racing heart. He wiped his forehead with his cuff and blinked a few times, his eyes stinging from sweat.

Then he leaned forward again to peer through the aperture. There was a pair of stocking feet less than a foot away. And another, and another, scores of them belonging to rows of knights sleeping in the long hall of the throne room. In the thin columns of light crosshatching the snoring men neatly ordered like furrows of a field, Derek's throne loomed large over his enemies, Argent men who were literally lying between Stiles and his goal.

This was such a shitty plan.

He opened the door inch by painful inch, holding his breath as he forced himself to remain in place as the hinges squealed. No one stopped snoring though, so when it was finally wide enough to admit a Stiles-sized person, out he went into the lion's den.

Stiles stood up, heart about to pound out of his mouth with nerves, and did his best impression of a regular joe going to take a piss as he maneuvered his way through the bodies. The only problem was that these men were all rich enough to warrant good, clean clothes, and Stiles of course looked and smelled as if he'd just crawled out of the sewers.

But for every solution, there was an answer, he mused, eying two men huddled back to back for warmth under a double layer of cloaks. Their exhalations rose like smoke from their mouths. Stiles carefully pinched the edge of the top cloak and slipped it off of them as if revealing a magic trick. He kept a wary eye on them as he wrapped it over his shoulders and raised the hood. Sure enough, one of the men began patting his thigh, searching for a cover that wasn't there.

Oh God. Lowering his voice to something along the lines of manly gruffness, Stiles told him, "Gotta piss."

To his relief, the knight calmed, curled into the fetal position and dragged the entire other cape over him. "'urry," he grumbled.

"Deal," Stiles whispered, stepping over the men as quickly as he could until he reached the far wall. There was a door there— a proper one this time with a lock. A locked lock, as Stiles discovered when he tried it. This was a relief. With any luck, what he was after would still be cached safely inside.

He dropped to one knee and removed a small roll of soft leather from inside his boot. Stiles set it on the floor and spread it out. He wiggled his fingers over it, searching for the right tool. Eventually, the right piece of curved wire caught his eye. He inserted the pick and began jiggling it this way and that as he listened to the tumblers.

No good. His tongue slipped out to lick his lips as he picked up a second pick. This one he had better luck with, and he was on the other side of the door in less than a minute. Stiles turned and blinked in the silver moonlight. Derek Hale's crown glittered there before him, like a star had landed practically in his hands. Stiles had seen it once or twice before on state occasions, sitting atop the king's head, its own small architectural feat in golden spires and ruby windows, as if that were the only place it could ever be. But of course it was in reality just a thing like any other thing and could be taken and manipulated.

"Just a thing," he murmured, and the scorn in his voice shocked him. No, he shouldn't have been there, and yes, he was just a weak human running with powers he didn't hold a candle to, didn't even fully understand. But those powers weren't in the room. It was just Stiles, staring at a crown whose bloody red eyes were staring right back at him. Just Stiles, trying to do the right thing even when everything else was wrong.

He reached out and took the crown— heavier than it looked— and fit it underneath his shirt, where it rested in the bag created where his shirt was tucked into his leggings. But no, that would never work. He untied the knot of the leather thong around his neck and hung the crown on it so that it knocked against the silver cross there. When reknotted around his neck, it lay awkwardly on his chest, but at least he wouldn't drop it down its owner's toilet or let it clatter to the floor in a room full of men who slept with their swords under their pillows.

Right on cue, a voice came from behind the door, not loud enough to make out precisely, but certainly heated. An answer, more voices, and then, "Will you shut up?!"

_That_ was loud, and it freaked Stiles out. His first impulse was to hide, so he hit the ground, pushing his back against the door and curling up. The crown was nestled between his knees and belly, shielded against the barrage of shouts and the groans of men woken up against their will. One man was complaining vociferously about his missing cloak.

Stiles snickered, feeling as if he were a kid raiding the larder at midnight or something. The grin spreading across his face washed some tension away. He sighed and stretched his legs out in front of him, and leaned back against the door. If he had to be in a small enclosed space for an unknown duration, it might as well be the room stocked with the crown jewels. There was a lot of fancy stuff here, trappings of state and such, as well as some novelty doodads Stiles just knew were going to be broken by the time he was done with them. The only question was where to start, he thought, rubbing his hands together in glee.

But after he had to dive on a strange box and muffle its obnoxious chirping tune with the King's ermine mantle, Stiles told himself to calm down. The only things left to manhandle were some nautilus shells sent as a coronation gift from a northern kingdom. They were engraved with scenes of Derek's victory over his uncle and looked like they would break if he so much as breathed on them. So, for the sake of the realm, Stiles sat back down to wait. Only a few more minutes, he judged.

He woke up with predawn light shining in his eyes and the bellow of someone standing just outside the door, "On your feet, hedge knights! Get to the field and earn your keep!"

There was a massive clamor as the knights stirred themselves. No one noticed the thumping noise from the storage room as Stiles beat the back of his head against the door. There was no time to wait for the room to clear, not with Derek riding at dawn.

He cracked the door open. The sight of men milling about half-naked and swarmed by pages laden with armor greeted him. He closed the door again. "Stilinski," he told himself, "you are by far the stupidest character in this fucked up fairy tale."

He took off his cloak. The smart thing would be to leave it behind, but no. Stiles had won it, they were bonded now, and besides, he could see it was beautiful in the light, bright scarlet with squirrel fur lining. He turned it inside out and balled it up in front of the crown-sized lump in his chest region and balanced the sheathed knife from his boot on top. Just another page, albeit a geriatric one, even if he did still have baby cheeks.

Stiles nudged the door open again and waited for a good moment to slip out. It wasn't long before a hungover knight started damning his boy for "rattling that mail to wake the harpies from hell." His neighbor accused that same knight of roughly the same, and it snowballed form there. Out Stiles slipped into the commotion, keeping his head down and his feet moving until he reached the correct tapestry. There he let the dagger slip off the cloak onto the floor, where he kicked it to the wall. "Oopsie-daisies!"

He crouched down, got his dagger tucked away again, and slipped inside the tunnel quick as a bunny. Stiles took off fast as his cramped quarters would allow. He'd be safe from any sharp-eyed pursuers once he'd disappeared deep enough into the warren's den of passageways riddling the castle. Stiles burst through the door to the king's former bedroom without even the presence of mind to check first. He sent up a quick prayer of thankfulness to his guardian angel that Scott was nowhere to be seen. Then a second prayer when he saw how brightly the sunlight was shining through the window.

Stiles rushed to the privy room and raised the seat. The rope was still there, a slip of white descending into black. He gave the crown a pat to reassure himself it was still secure, and put on his new cape so it wouldn't be in the way. Then he grabbed the rope and swung himself into the shaft. Stiles closed the privy above him and tried not to go too fast as he descended hand over hand back into the night. He wished Scott had been there in the room. He could have said goodbye. He could have killed him, too, picked up one of those downy pillows and pressed it over Scott's mouth. Stiles didn't know which was kinder.

No, he thought, feet hitting the ground again, thank God. King-slaying was a job for a king, and killing a friend was not a job for a Stiles.

He stuck his head out of the hole in the wall he'd squeezed into a few hours before. His vision swam and blurred in the light. He was dehydrated, hungry and he could see flags on pennants sticking up like a forest beyond the mud and old campfires of Derek's army. Stiles didn't let himself think about if he would make it in time or where the hell the king even was, he just started to run.

There were men in his way, and he dodged them. There were piles of smoldering coals, and he jumped them. He kept running, crown thumping and sliding against his chest, cloak flying behind him like a flag until his raw throat burned with every breath.

When he stumbled to a halt outside Derek's tent, he took a moment to catch his breath and calm his heart. There were only two men posted, and that was as good as a written note for Stiles to know that the king had already taken off. The guards were grizzled veterans, too old to withstand a day in the field maybe, but more than capable of fending off opportunistic runaways. They barely batted an eye at the winded baron at their feet.

"Which way?" Stiles managed eventually.

One of them slowly, as if Stiles must have left his brain behind somewhere, replied, "Towards the front, my lord."

Good thing he was used to asking stupid questions. He nodded. "I see. And when are they riding out?"

"Now, my lord."

Stiles tried not to panic. "God save the king."

"God save the king."

And he was off again, charging through where he didn't belong. The men were getting thicker as he made his way to the front. He didn't know where he was anymore. Then he stumbled over a spear and almost tumbled to the ground before a thick column of soldiers.

Stiles barely saw the hooves of the passing courser in time before he threw himself out from under them. Its rider's curses rang in his ears as he lay exhausted on the churned grass. He was lost. Another horse passed, and another.

They were going to the front.

Stiles propped himself up, limb by limb, and got to his feet to run after them.

Derek was at the front. He was on a black destrier flanked by triskelion flags. That might have been how Stiles found him. He remembered collapsing before the king, falling onto his knees, each huge breath pulling through his thick throat feeling like it was made of shattered glass.

"Stiles!"

He reached into his shirt and drew out the crown, bowing his head to slide his crucifix free. Stiles looked up and tried to smile. Derek was jumping down to get to him, get to the crown.

He lost consciousness as Derek gathered up his body, crumpled up in a crimson cloak as red as blood and shouted for someone to take his spymaster to safety.

That evening, Derek didn't raise an eyebrow when he strode through the curtain of his tent and found himself facing Stiles. The king did not like being attended in the wake of battle. He preferred to lick his wounds in private, and Stiles knew all this, and so was not insulted when Derek narrowed his eyes and growled.

Stiles gave him a look over the rim of his goblet. He forced himself not to blink when Derek dropped his helmet with a clang. He shed his gauntlets as intimidatingly as physically possible and still Stiles didn't flinch.

Finally, Derek's nostrils flared, and he turned away, fairly ripping off his cuisses. Then his arm contorted awkwardly over his shoulder so his fingers could work at the stubborn leather clasps to his pauldrons. You would think that after everything…

"Will you ever change?" Stiles demanded, harsher and louder than he wanted, but it was done, and it seemed he was on a roll. "Just ask me, My King. Ask me for anything."

Derek's fingers paused, and the king's head hung a little lower. Slowly and wearily, his fingers picked up the clasp again. "Leave me, Stiles."

Stiles' goblet dropped to the dirt as he got to his feet. "Except that," he said, mouth firm. Knocking away Derek's fingers, he pulled at the tabs and removed the two pauldrons. Then the rerebraces, vambraces and cuirass. There was more blood on them than he had first noticed. Stiles helped slide his chainmail over his head and pretended not to see his king's arms shaking with the effort of lifting them. Beneath the mail, his tunic was wet through with dark sweat, and Stiles let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding when there were no red stains.

The king was a mess. His hair was stiff with sweat and dust. There was blood on his neck, Stiles noticed, his breath sucking in again. His fingertips went to it. It could be anyone's, anyone at all, he told himself. Derek was only tired. As if in answer, the king turned to face him.

Then there was a force at his mouth, a hot pressure of lips and tongue. It was almost an attack, but Stiles was not surprised. He took his hands to Derek's face and yielded his mouth to the king. He drew away to breath. "Shh," he calmed, as he brushed the hair back from Derek's temples.

This was not a struggle. This was not a battlefield. Stiles knew that, but did Derek? His king, whose every instinct drove him to the throne, even if he had to walk there across a bridge of dead men's backs? Stiles did not lift a hand to stop him as his shirt was drawn over his head.

"Boots," Derek commanded, watching him. Stiles obliged, shedding his pants too. When he straightened, naked as the day he was born, Derek's eyes glowed with a ferocity that banished every sensible thought from his mind. Stiles thought of coals, dark but full of heat. He began to shiver, trapped between his king's heat and the night's chill.

Derek was smirking, Stiles realized in affront. He stepped back, but did not get any farther, because Derek's hand was closed around his wrist, reeling him in.

Stiles felt overpowered. Not unpleasantly, by any means. His cock was thickening, long and hard against the coarse linen of Derek's pants. Stiles let himself be maneuvered behind the partition that demarked the bedchamber. For all his snooping, he had never been there, had never even thought about going there. It had carried an air of sanctity that he had only breached when he was sunk so deep into the pleasure of his own cock that the unholiness pushed him deeper.

"What do you want?" he asked, voice rough. Anything, anything.

"Get down," Derek answered immediately, loosening his clothing to take his cock out.

Stiles went down on his knees, eyes fixed on it. His heart was racing as he slid his hands around Derek's hips and sunk his fingers into his ass, bringing his cock even closer.

Stiles did what he knew felt good. He opened his lips and licked the underside before taking him inside his mouth and sucking. His cock was hotter than he had imagined.

Derek's hips moved, bringing him back to consciousness. Stiles understood what he needed then, and gave it to him, opening his mouth wider and letting the king fuck his mouth. Derek's fingers were in his hair, and Stiles ended up jerking himself off to the same rhythm.

Later, in bed, Derek looked at him long and boldly, as if to inspect his naked body. Stiles wondered if he'd ever be able to read what was going on inside the king's head. He hoped so, because sometimes it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

"Your father told me he saw you were mine, although he didn't know why," Derek said, watching Stiles' face.

His spymaster cringed. "Thinking about things my father said— or potentially _might_ say at some horrible, horrible point in the future —not really high on my list of things to do at the moment."

"Stiles."

Stiles let out a noisy pained breath. "He didn't see how you looked when I fell in through your window—"

"Naked?" asked Derek. Confused, Stiles looked back over his shoulder at the king. Derek was smiling, not much, but it was still there, happy and weightless. It made Stiles really want to kiss him, to just reach over and reward him. That wasn't for him to do though. The thought made his laughter fade.

"What did you mean then?" asked Derek again, in the quiet.

Stiles tugged at the blankets uselessly, playing with the fabric and trying to put words to the feelings that had gripped him for the past few weeks without ever explaining themselves to him. "I mean that… well, we are outside the walls and Scott— Lord McCall— is inside. It sucks but you're going to get up tomorrow morning and the next and the next until you are inside and he's outside."

Stiles paused and scrubbed his face with his hand. "No, God, that's not really what I mean. It was when I told you the first night about Lord McCall, your face… I'd never seen anyone look that way before. And I've seen you look that way a lot now. When you're on the run, but you still look at the sky and the trees. Or when you said goodbye to Lydia. You love this country. You love us."

Silence. Stiles, assuming he'd said the wrong thing yet again, turned his head. Derek's eyes were pressed shut.

"Your Majesty?" he whispered tentatively.

Derek cleared his throat. "I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow, Stiles." He opened his eyes, just in time for his spymaster to catch a glimpse of something precious and rare before it flew away behind his conviction.

It startled Stiles enough to answer with an automatic comfort, "It's alright; we can figure it out in the morning."

"Something bad will happen," the king replied, heedless of Stiles' words.

"Hey, no; it'll work out."

Derek cut him off. "No, you don't understand. I have a plan for tomorrow, but I don't know what I'm going to _do_."

There was something like fear there that Stiles didn't understand. It didn't sound natural seeping through Derek's battlefield-hoarse voice. "It will be alright," he tried.

"You're going to be by my side tomorrow, for whatever happens."

Stiles swallowed. Derek's eyes were wide and demanding, and he couldn't have refused if he'd wanted to. "I'm not going anywhere, My King."

To maintain appearances the next morning, Stiles pretty much crawled out the back of Derek's tent and came round the front to go straight to HQ. Lord Boyd was already in attendance. The duke would of course come at his own leisure, and Earl Mahealani would appear punctually on had seen Lady Erica about, but wasn't sure she was invited to the war counsel.

Stiles inspected the strong and silent type waiting patiently and said, "A horse walks in to a tavern and the barman says, 'Why the long face?'"

Boyd got up and left. Stiles shrugged and reached for an apple from the basket on the table. Whateva. Only one person in the whole camp had sucked the king off last night, and it was Stiles, nobody but Stiles. He leaned back in his chair and reveled in his smugness. He felt different, newer, as if he had reached another stage of life just as one evolves from a child to an adult.

Boyd, Jackson and Danny came in as a pack a bit later. When Derek swept in after them, his lords stood up, and only after he took his place at the head of the table did they return to their seats. The king was wearing his crown and resembled to Stiles a Roman emperor. "This is a siege," he began, glowering at each of them for emphasis. "But I'm not going to wait around for this to end."

"You want us to give up?" Boyd asked. "What else do you do in a siege?"

"Flush the prey out," announced the king.

Danny caught on the quickest. "Force them out from behind the walls, you mean."

"Yes," Derek confirmed.

"How?" asked Jackson, looking skeptical and bloodthirsty at the same time.

"Fire. I'm going to set the castle on fire." Shaken looks were exchanged around the table as Derek continued. "Well, actually, the kitchen will catch fire, and it will spread. There hasn't been much rain lately."

It had been raining quite a bit, actually, but more importantly, they were all uncomfortable with how blasé the king seemed to be about this. Stiles for one would have put Derek last on a list of his acquaintances likely to reduce their homes to cinders. "Um, Argents could die," he objected.

Derek regarded him, his clear green gaze holding just one emotion. It made Stiles feel very lonely. "I want Argents to die."

More uneasy shifting from his court. Jackson sneered. "The Argents will kill you for that. Peasants won't, and it's them who really die in a siege."

"Why kill peasants when you could kill Argents?" Danny countered.

"Blood feud," Boyd said, as if starting a list.

"No," said the king. "It's very hard to prove arson."

He should know. Yet another moment passed where everyone in the room wished he were somewhere else. Jackson rode over it with a snort. "Who gives a shit? The Argents will blame you even if they can't prove anything."

Derek shrugged. "Probably. If we don't give them a scapegoat."

"What scapegoat?" Stiles scoffed.

"Whatever scapegoat your spies can create for me," Derek informed him.

"Ohhh, so that's who sparks the fire, I see," he said, snapping his fingers as he got it.

"When's the soonest you can arrange it?"

Stiles puffed out his cheeks as he calculated. "Welllll, I can make contact later this evening and then, maybe later this week?"

"As soon as possible," the king told him with a look Stiles didn't believe he deserved. He was both relieved and unhappy with this complete reversal of the night before. Relieved because nothing had changed for the worse and unhappy because nothing seemed to have changed at all. The more he thought about it, the less happy he was with just a return to status quo. Stiles liked feeling special and would be damned before he gave that up. He wanted Derek, but Derek was not someone who could be taken.

And then, Stiles was overwhelmed by the meaning of the word 'want.' His mind fell backwards into the night. He relived it— the touches, the scents, the tastes that had come to him so naturally. It seemed to him that these sensations, preserved in his mind as if in glowing amber, were not memories but glimpses of the future, imaginings so vivid that they had to be prophetic.

Other words came to him to encapsulate this knowledge of how he and Derek had met and would meet again. 'Passion' and 'love' were so big and grand that Stiles didn't at first believe that one night was enough to fill them up all the way. But no, he thought, his heart soaring high over his mind, this is the blossoming of a lifetime of _philabasileus_.

As if cutting the anchor from a ship, he gave himself over to the beautiful sensation of loving the king and being in love with Derek. He didn't feel the next hour or so pass. He was enraptured by the gap between the moss-colored wool of Derek's shirt collar and the soft skin of his neck, the power in his jawline and the curve of his eyebrows. The intelligent way he balanced his cup when he drank.

When Derek dismissed them with their orders, Stiles left with the single-minded resolve of someone who has a higher purpose. He changed clothes and took off for that hole in the wall he was getting to know so well. He emerged from the tunnels in the cellar of a disreputable tavern in an even more disreputable part of town. Flipping the hood of his favorite new red cloak up over his head, Stiles made his way upstairs. The day before he would never have worn anything so showy on a mission of discretion, but that was a long time ago. Now he was invincible. Besides, the cloak connected him to Derek, visible evidence of what he was willing to risk for him.

Stiles had a quiet word with the barman and then took a seat alone in a corner. He ate a bowl of vegetable stew and waited. He thought about Derek.

"You don't look like you have the French pox."

Stiles stood and shook the man's hand. "Good afternoon, Doctor."

"'Good evening' would be more appropriate," corrected Doctor Deaton, amusement ghosting faintly over his face. He sat opposite Stiles, who remained standing for a second to offer, "Can I get you a beer or something?"

"No, no, I'll be leaving soon; I have an appointment."

Stiles resumed his seat. "Business is good?"

The doctor tilted his head ruefully. "Too good. Lots of people crowded in one city makes for bad air." Then he regarded Stiles directly. "This is a dangerous place for you to be."

Stiles waved his hand. "Danger is my middle name."

"More danger means more patients I don't need," countered Deaton in his relentless way. "What are you doing here?"

"Trying to save you some lives, in fact," the spymaster said, leaning forward on his elbows earnestly. The doctor waited patiently for him to go on. "But for that to happen, I need your help with something delicate."

Deaton crossed his arms. "I don't play games in the shadows anymore."

"Listen to me!" Stiles jolted farther across the table. "I can't handhold this mission; I have to be out of here by morning. And yeah, I know this is a big favor to ask, but you're the only man in the city I can entrust this to."

He looked doubtful. "You know I'm Duke McCall's personal physician these days."

Duke? "I know," Stiles said, not showing his surprise.

"I like him."

"So do I," replied Stiles honestly, although he felt like never before the inadequacy of liking someone next to loving someone. "But what the Argents are doing to him— to all of us— is wrong, and you can't tell me that's not true."

The doctor's gaze slid to the side, and Stiles wondered just what the Argents were doing that made this unflappable man look so worried. "What's your plan?" he asked.

Stiles explained, and later, slowly, the doctor agreed to help. "The day after tomorrow," he said. "If everything goes smoothly." He smiles in that flat way of his where his eyes stayed wide. It gave Stiles the heebie-jeebies, and he couldn't help but recall that he'd heard some say Deaton had a supernatural advantage over other men.

"A suggestion," the doctor mentioned as parting words. "Tell the War King to change his name."

"He's trying," Stiles replied as his guest disappeared out the tavern door. He hadn't removed his hood from his head the entire evening, but he pulled it even farther over his forehead before he set out again.

It had been a typical entry in the siege diary, he found when he got back. Except of course that it was Sunday, so they had taken a break from lobbing arrows at the defenders in exchange for listening to the priests. From his tent, Stiles could hear the ravings of an enterprising friar who had set up shop nearby and was busy gaining a reputation among the men of being something of a mystic. Stiles just wanted to be left alone. He meditated on the story of David and Jonathan and drew new comfort from it. He wondered if Derek shared his unrepentant fears, if he would ever confess their sins. Stiles wanted to see him desperately but was lost as to how. He couldn't just drop in. That would be horribly presumptuous, and more importantly, he wouldn't be able to bear it when the king sent him away. He went to bed alone.

Stiles woke up the next morning groaning. So this was what being in love felt like: complete shit. He was less than particularly inspired to go tackle the challenges of the new day. On top of everything, someone had to get Lord Isaac out of the castle so he didn't go up in flames with it, and that job looked like it belonged to Stiles. He would have given his left foot to sleep in for just one morning. Up and at 'em, Stilinski.

Stiles was the first to HQ. Derek again was the last to appear.

"Stiles," the king began without any preamble. "When is it?"

Nobody had to ask for clarification. "Tomorrow, Your Majesty," Stiles answered. He was searching Derek's features for something special, some secret sign just for him. There was nothing.

Derek turned to Jackson. Then a shout rang out from immediately outside the tent, loud surprised voices, and that was it, all the warning Stiles had to draw his sword and flank the king with Boyd. He could hear Derek snarl as the tent flap flew open for one man striding in. Stiles blinked, not comprehending what his eyes were telling him. The man became Isaac, dumping a bundle of cloth— no, a woman— onto the table.

Boyd recognized the limp figure first. "Erica!" he bellowed, rushing to support her lolling head. He tried to brush her blond hair back from her lips and threaten Isaac simultaneously.

Blades were flashing everywhere. Jackson and Danny had Isaac backed against a tent pole with their sword points at his throat. Isaac was shouting at them and trying to look at Derek. Everyone was yelling.

"SILENCE!" Derek's command rattled his lords to their bones. Stiles' ears rang. "Isaac. What happened?"

"She's a traitor, My King!" he blurted out.

Boyd leapt up and forced Isaac's head back with his blade tip. "You are the traitor, and he is not your king," he growled. His voice was shaking. "She's dead."

"Boyd," Derek said. The man withstood the iron in his king's voice for a second longer before he lowered his sword enough to let Isaac speak.

Isaac was breathing heavily, and his eyes were anguished when they met Derek's. "She was dealing with Gerard Argent. She was going to sell you out."

Jackson saw the look on Derek's face. "You believe him?" he demanded.

"Isaac has been working for me since the beginning," Derek explained. Weapons lowered, warily.

"It's good you're here," Stiles told Isaac. Everyone looked at him as if they'd forgotten his existence. "The castle isn't going to be a very safe place tomorrow, and please, God, tell me you didn't already hear that from some Argent."

Isaac's forehead wrinkled. "What? No, why?"

Stiles bit his lip. That Isaac didn't know about the fire could mean many things. At its worst, it meant that the Argents had been well aware of Isaac's double-dealing, all information he had was suspect, and they were using him to dispose of Erica, an exhausted resource. It could also mean that Isaac's story was indeed the correct version of events, but he simply hadn't been told all that the Argents knew. In both cases the fire would never happen. Or there was the best case scenario: Isaac had silenced Erica before she had the chance to sell her information.

Stiles asked an easy question first. "Do you know what Erica told Gerard Argent?"

Isaac shook his head. "I was outside Gerard's office when I saw her come out in disguise. They shook hands and spoke about something else coming soon. I don't know anything more, but it was enough." His shoulders were hunched like he was cornered.

Derek addressed his lords. "Did any of you speak to Erica about the plan?"

Boyd faced his king. He dropped to one knee and held his sword out flat on his palms before his bowed head. "I did, Your Majesty."

For a long moment, no one moved or said anything. Then Derek growled at them. "Get up. Everyone, get out."

His lords froze, unwilling to leave with so many questions still unanswered. Derek snarled. "Outside now!"

It felt wrong to go out into the sun. It was a bright, cloudless day— completely wrong. They all shielded their eyes from the glare and disappeared without looking at each other.

Stiles was the only one who didn't seem to have somewhere to go. His instinct was to stay near the king, to help, even if he didn't know how. So he dawdled. But after a while, he couldn't take it anymore, and he set off on an aimless walk.

His thoughts were skittering and sliding about like beads of water on a windowpane. Voices and sounds drifted in and out of his consciousness.

"My girl's got tits like fucking moons, huge, they are, and soft like you wouldn't believe." The sergeant was just to his left, but Stiles felt like he was a million miles away. How long had it been since he thought of Lady Lydia like that? Ages ago.

Then that same sergeant jumped to his feet and greeted him by name. Stiles blinked and realized he'd wandered into the thick of the men he'd levied. The sergeant was in charge of the watch sometimes at home. "It's good to see you, my lord," he said with a small bow.

"You too," Stiles answered with a smile, and thus began a round of meeting and greeting and general moral-building that Stiles realized he should have started ages ago. He walked back to his tent hours later with aching feet and a sense of satisfaction.

There was a man sitting in his chair in the shadowy far corner of his tent. Stiles yelped. "Jesus! No, no, no, get out!"

The figure stood and came towards him. A scream for his guards was on the tip of Stiles' tongue when he recognized Derek. "Oh—"

The king pulled him close by the waist. He took Stiles' face in his rough fingers, running over his cheekbones, pushing back his hair, pressing his thumbs against his jawline. Stiles lay his hands over Derek's, stilling them. The king's eyes were digging deep into whatever Stiles' face could show. It wasn't hard to guess what he was looking for. "How could she do that to you?" Stiles asked.

Derek sighed. His mouth was pulled tight when he answered "She's not the first nor the last."

"Oh, My King." Stiles couldn't help but close the distance between them with a small kiss. Derek didn't move under his lips except to follow them a tiny distance forward when Stiles drew sadly away.

The king dipped his head as if embarrassed, but Stiles wasn't going to let him get away now that he had him. He'd missed him so much. He pressed himself into the contours of his body, fitting his slim hips against Derek's and sliding his hands up his chest to settle in his dark hair. Derek responded by bringing his head forward so that their foreheads rested together. Stiles discovered himself whispering his promise again, "Not going anywhere. Not going anywhere."

The king's right hand had slipped down to caress his neck. His lips moved over the skin just below Stiles' earlobe, softly at first. Stiles let out a moan when Derek's mouth opened and his kisses there deepened. Then the king's hands were under his ass and his legs were hugging Derek's waist. Their lips were together again, and Derek tasted even better than Stiles remembered.

The king carried him over to the bed and laid him down. Stiles wriggled to a more comfortable position on his pillows without taking his hands from Derek's body. He encouraged his warm weight down on top of him, feeling Derek's firm cock pressing into him. But the king seemed more than content to go slow. Stiles leveraged them up after a bit so they could lose their shirts. The shift in position meant that Derek noticed Stiles' own hardness with a pointed look, which made his spymaster blush and grin. The king smiled back and met his lips.

Stiles hummed happily. He was beginning to understand their new language. He knew it was alright for him to slide Derek's pants down and then do the same for himself. Derek drew even closer as he started to move against him.

Stiles shivered. "Oh God, Derek," he breathed and wrapped a hand around their cocks. The king sped up then, and Stiles got noisier with every thrust. Stiles came quickly and could scarcely believe it when he saw some streaks of his cum glistening on Derek's stomach. He believed it even less when Derek finished himself off with his eyes fixated on Stiles' body.

Afterwards, the king sat back on his haunches to breath. "Come here," Stiles invited, stretching a hand up for his neck. Derek came, and Stiles spun them so that his warm sticky belly was pressed on top of the king's. "I'm not going anywhere," he said again, lips ghosting across his ear. "I love you, and I'm not going anywhere."

Derek cut his breath off with a long kiss. When they finally broke apart, Stiles could see in his eyes that he wanted to say something. The king opened his mouth, but it was another moment before he had the words to speak. "When I'm with you," he began in a rush that slowed to jolty phrases, "I feel like I'm drowning. But you're also holding me up." His eyes slid off to the side and he stopped, unused breath released in a short, frustrated exhale.

Stiles wanted to cry. Derek was trying so hard. "I know, it's alright," he said, running his hands through the king's hair. He laughed a little. "I know how to swim."

Derek lay himself back down on Stiles' chest. His muscles felt stiffer than before, a tense current running through him. Stiles wanted it to go away. "It's alright," he comforted, running his hands up and down his spine. "I love you so much that you don't have to say anything ever again if you don't want to."

Derek's laughter was only one beat long, but it seemed to do the trick anyway. He fell asleep between Stiles' legs. Stiles was loath to roll him off, but it had to be done. The king was heavier than he looked. He wrapped himself in a blanket and went to the washbasin set up in a corner of his tent, hissing as his bare feet moved on cold rugs. He dipped a cloth in the near-frozen water and gritted his teeth as he cleaned himself off. The plan had been to clean Derek up a bit too, but there was no way he would stay asleep with that temperature of water. Better to simply go back to bed. Stiles did just that, with a smile on his face that felt like it had always been there. The king moved towards his warmth. Stiles smiled wider.

He didn't know how he could ever fall asleep while he felt that giddy. But after no more than hour, his study of Derek's sleep-softened features faded into a gentle dissolve, and Stiles was asleep.

Derek was not in the bed with him when he woke up. He was on the other side of the partition, the part of the tent that counted as public space, listening to a man holding his hat in his hands report that his master, Lord Boyd, had committed suicide in the night while holding vigil over Erica's body.

* * *

The castle was burning. The dark smoke rose first in a column over the great hall. The flames coated the roofs over my quarters and then caved in suddenly, reminding me of lightning striking trees.

My horse shifted nervously under me. Maybe, like animals sometimes did, it was sensing the pain spiking behind my heart and spreading through my chest, throat and behind my eyes, aching.

It wasn't like the first fire. There was no hole, no black land just a footstep away.

Only the old tower was still standing, but I'd rip it down with my own hands if I had to.

"My King." It was Stiles. It was always Stiles, filling in the holes, walking me backwards and away from the black land.

"I destroyed it," I told him. He put one hand on my horse's haunch and the other on its nose, hushing it.

"Yeah." His eyes flicked to mine. "You good?"

He was trying not to ask me how I felt finishing the job my uncle started. "Yeah."

He nodded and looked back to the fire. We were all looking at it, every man in this army. Isaac came to my other side, and Jackson and Danny, there with me as the old tower leaned, broke and fell.

I had burned the castle down. Adjective adjective verb noun didn't matter the castle was gone, because I was sick of being angry when I wanted to go home. The castle was a new patch of blue in the sky that I'd never seen before.

* * *

Afterwards, the king was drawn to that spot so often that sometimes his lords would informally assemble there if they needed to be near him. It was sunset, and the clouds were stacking themselves up in tall heavenly columns draped with softly shaded pinks. Jackson was ignorant of its glory. He'd been touchy for days, sensing that the fighting was drawing to a close and remembering that he really didn't care about anyone or anything other than himself. "So we're just going to sit on our asses until they attack?"

"Not sitting, waiting," Isaac corrected, but Jackson may as well not have heard him.

"I'm going to get my men and go home if this takes any longer."

"Abandon me, and you abandon Lydia," Derek warned. "You and yours are on watch tonight. _All_ of yours. No surprises."

Jackson looked up to Heaven and sighed deeply. "Just let him post up here, he'd scare the shit out of anyone."

They looked down at where Stiles was sprawled, head lolling as he snored, not looking the least bit intimidating for all that he was armed to the teeth. "I may piss myself," Isaac deadpanned.

"I'll take him back," said the king. "But I mean it, Jackson: Gerard Argent has no honor, and he won't hesitate to attack by night—"

"If he attacks at all," Jackson interrupted.

"It's the best time to feint and then disappear. They'll come." He knelt down and gathered Stiles up as if, even with his chain mail and sword, he was just a child.

Stiles learned from his guard in the morning that the Argents had indeed made their attack, and that, once more, he'd slept through it. It didn't register at first but the man insisted that a force of no more than eight hundred men had charged straight out of the gate right before dawn.

"It's true," croaked Isaac, limping up to him. His curls were plastered to his head and stiff with dried sweat.

"Why the hell didn't someone wake me up?!" Stiles yelled at him. What must his men think of him, a lord who never led them? "And where is the king?" He didn't answer at first, and Stiles wanted to explode. "Isaac, come on!"

But the viscount was simply too tired to walk and explain at the same time. It took far too long for him to be within proximity for his hoarse voice to be heard. "He's fine, Stiles, he's fine."

Stiles took a breath and nodded. He handed Isaac the skin he had at his hip. The viscount downed the watered beer in two long gulps. Then he cleared his throat and handed it back. "Thanks."

"No problem," Stiles said automatically. "But really, I'm not going to get invited back to these parties if I never dance. What the fuck, Isaac?"

He shook his head. "Eight hundred men. It was all over before Jackson even had to wake anyone up who wasn't already swinging a sword."

"Just eight hundred?" Stiles pressed. That couldn't be right.

"Scott McCall and his personal suicide squad," Isaac confirmed.

"Scott's dead?" There was no air in his lungs, but Scott must be breathing, or else nothing was right, so he'd know immediately, wouldn't he?

Isaac shook his head. "No. No. We have him, he's locked up somewhere."

Stiles was shaking. His knees were weak under him as he turned, pulling his fingers through his hair. "Holy shit, _holy_ shit," he breathed. He faced Isaac again. "This wasn't suicide," he told him. "This was a sacrifice."

"Eight hundred men," Isaac repeated, following.

"I bet the Argents had three times that when they bolted." Stiles just felt empty and sad, but Isaac gathered himself like a coiling snake, eyes flashing dangerously. Suddenly he was in Stiles' face, so close that it spooked a yelp out of him. Pain had twisted the lord's handsome features almost beyond recognition. "Baron," he hissed. "Don't kill him."

Stiles felt helpless. "Isaac, I can't—"

"Don't let the king kill him," he insisted again, gripping Stiles' shirt to drag him even closer. "If he dies, then I don't know what I've done, what _we've_ done." The lord's mouth pulled into a deep, horrible line as he tried to fight himself and Stiles at the same time.

His fist, still wrapped in Stiles' shirt, jerked and pulsed, but only loosened when the spymaster said, in a voice forced into calmness, "I understand. I understand."

Isaac blinked at him as he transformed back into himself. Stiles, uncomfortable, asked, "Can you let me go now? Please?"

Isaac released him and stepped back. He collected himself enough to pick his head up and take another step away. Then he turned and left without another word.

Stiles retreated inside his tent, but with no one watching, he sunk to the ground. He drew a knee up, and his head fell to rest against it. He wrapped his arms around himself until he was pulled small and inconspicuous, staring at his own hip. "Fuck," he whispered in a voice that was not his own. He'd never sounded like this before.

He had Scott brought to him later, when it was dark and most soldiers were asleep or too blind drunk to recognize him and heckle him en route. Lord McCall walked through the tent flap with a bag over his head and escorted by five burly men who were not directing their blinded prisoner gently. Stiles didn't like it.

"Out! All of you, out!"

A man with a fresh cut on his lip objected, "The king ordered—"

"Yeah, I know what he ordered! Just stand outside." He growled when they hesitated. "Fucking blame me if the king sees you. Go!"

They left. As soon as the flap fell closed behind them, Stiles moved to take the burlap sack off of Scott's head. A familiar face blinked owlishly at him, and a familiar mouth began to smile automatically at the sight of a friend. For lack of a better idea, Stiles went and pulled up a chair for him, because Scott was favoring his right leg heavily.

He sat, but he didn't say anything to break the silence until Stiles knelt by him and started pressing his fingers against his shins and arms to check for broken bones. "I'm fine, I'm fine, Stiles," Scott said, almost laughing. "Just cut up."

Stiles was floored. But at the same time, it was just such a Scott move to be like that. "Jesus," he swore, "what the actual fuck, Scott? Do you even know what you've done?"

Scott wasn't laughing anymore. His gaze dropped to his hands, which were lying with bound wrists on his lap. "Look, I'm not proud of a lot of this."

"Oh my God, Scott!" Stiles fumed. "Argh! Why? Why, Scott, why? Just tell me what in God's holy name could be worth all of this?"

Scott looked up and met Stiles' eyes with that kind of bravery that worked time and again to pardon him of his mistakes. "Allison."

Even then, in a dingy little tent surrounded by men who wanted to go home, by a battlefield churning with blood and horse shit, Scott said her name like a prayer. It floated away from them, its own delicate, crystalline future.

"You are so stupid." It's all he could say.

Scott tried to make him understand. "Stiles…"

"No, I mean it. You fucked up, Scott. You fucked it all up."

Scott's head bowed down again to his hands twitching uselessly with nervous energy in his lap. Dirt, dried blood, soot and bruises had encrusted them until they are almost black. "Derek's going to execute me, isn't he?"

Stiles walked back a step or two to catch his breath. He took a minute to cover his face with his hands and breathe before answering, "Yeah. Yeah, probably."

In the pause that followed, Stiles wondered wildly what he would do if Scott begged him for help. He didn't know.

"It's alright, Stiles."

"No, it really isn't." They stared at anywhere but each other until Stiles spoke up again. "How could you say that it's alright? It's not."

Scott didn't hesitate. "I wanted this to be as bloodless as possible. Just one death, just one monster's death."

"Is that what the Argents told you?"

"Yeah." At least he had the shame to look abashed.

"And now you think that it's somehow fair if _you_ die? To end it?" Stiles shook his head. "No. Just— _no_."

"Look, if I'm gone, then this will all be over. Derek can have the throne. I don't want it."

Stiles could hardly believe his ears. "You don't even _want_ it?"

Scott shrugged helplessly, as if he'd simply been caught up in the storm by accident. "I just want to deserve Lady Allison, Stiles! That's all I've ever wanted!"

"Yeah, well, _dying_ isn't going to cut it, Scott!" Stiles howled. "And if anyone's death would make this fair, it would be mine!"

"_What_?"

"I intercepted the note, I got him out, I've been holding his hand this entire time, me, me, ME! I did it! I saved that 'monster's' life, Scott! I did it!" Stiles was screaming over his captive.

Scott stared at him and softly replied, "This is a civil war. It's going to be a fight to the last man unless I do something."

He sounded just like he was trying to break a hard truth to an old friend, but Stiles couldn't take it anymore. He turned and ran. "No! Not like this!"

He didn't think about the warning Scott yelled after him, "It's either going to be me or him, Stiles!" He didn't want to think about a choice he would never be prepared to make. He didn't want to think about whether he'd already made it.

Stiles may as well have been deaf and blind as his feet took him to Derek like there was no other destination in the world. He entered HQ without a word.

The king and Jackson looked up from the map spread on the table. Derek met his eyes and looked at him, only him, as he commanded Jackson out. "Leave us."

The duke slipped past Stiles, glancing sideways at his face for clues. Stiles didn't notice, only stood there with his chest heaving. When they were alone, Derek came to him. Stiles wrapped his arms tightly around him, and the king hesitatingly put his arms about him too. Stiles squeezed tighter. "What happened?" Derek rumbled.

"I met with him," he said, hiding his face against Derek's shoulder.

The king tensed. "With Scott?"

"Yes," Stiles said. He didn't look up. "My King, he said it would either be your death or his that would end this."

Derek took him by the shoulders and parted them. He looked Stiles in the eye. "You knew that," he reminded him in a voice black with intensity. "You knew that when you came in through my window."

He had known. He had known all along that those days were someone's last. Only he hadn't realized the implications, and not just for the man who would die. Panic shot through him. He twisted wildly out of Derek's grasp. "Don't do it! You can't!"

Helplessness darted through the king's eyes, and then he was shouting back. "What else am I supposed to _do_?!"

But Stiles' mind was racing ahead when he wailed, "If you kill him they'll say you can only kill, only revenge and revenge and revenge and no peace, never. But you're not the War King—"

"Stiles—"

"I know you're not the War King! I know it! Please, My King, Derek, for the sake of—"

Then Derek was there and Stiles had no room to breathe, let alone continue. The look of fury on his face warped the feeling into a horrible dark mirror of their nights. The king hissed, "For the sake of the love we share? For your sake?"

Stiles didn't understand. The world had flipped upside down too fast. Now the king was ripping his heart out with the very word he'd been longing to hear. "_What?_"

"This is the price of your body, isn't it? This is why, so you could beg me for his life." Everything was falling into place for him. His eyes raked across Stiles' face. "You're a whore."

Stiles tried to reach for him, but Derek flinched away as if he had the plague, and Stiles sagged to his knees. "No," he sobbed. "There's no price. There's no betrayal. I love you—" The king turned away, disgusted. Stiles grabbed Derek's hand and raised his shaking voice. "But you're going to lose your soul if you do this." He closed his eyes and kissed his knuckles deeply. It might have been the last time he would ever touch the king. He tried to press Derek's hand to his forehead, but it was asking too much, and it slipped away. Stiles looked up through blurry eyes. "For your own sake—"

"Get out!"

"Find another way."

Derek growled and yanked him to his feet by the collar. "I said get out, Stiles!" He marched him outside and threw him onto the ground without a backward glance. The tent flap swung closed behind him. The guards were careful to keep their eyes fixed straight ahead as Stiles clambered to his feet. He went back to his tent with no thoughts, no nothing. He had tried and lost everything. He didn't care who saw him crying, and he didn't remember passing out on top of the covers.

His dreams took him away to the safest place they could hide him. It was early autumn, with the heat of the afternoon sun coming through the hall at home. The wood of the table underneath his hands was warm, like always, and Scott was there, like always.

Stiles was so grateful for his presence, but he was also overcome with sadness. It distracted him, and he tried to communicate that to Scott. Then he wouldn't stop talking and asking questions Stiles had no choice but to answer. Slowly and excruciatingly, Stiles came to understand that he would not be able to communicate that these were their last moments together and that he had to savor them.

"Why did you let him in?" Scott asked him. It was the question he had been building up to. He was referring to Derek's cock.

Stiles broke into a sweat, unable to express that Derek had not yet been inside of him. Except that he had. It was perfect, like bookends, first that guilty thing so long ago with the messenger and then taking Derek in his mouth. So it all balanced out, it didn't matter, Derek had been inside of him already, was inside of him for good, but that wasn't something Scott would get. "Does it matter?"

Scott leaned in with a concerned expression, a little startled that he had to explain. "It's another guy."

Stiles was mute. He wanted to tell Scott that he was in love, but that would be wrong. He didn't want to stomach him thinking gold was brass.

"What's it like?" Scott asked then, face soft.

Anxiety flew away like a kite. "It's like an earthquake," he answered.

As the dream faded to the grey before the morning light, Stiles lost everything except the earthquake. The word echoed through his head, and as he opened his eyes and began to gather his memories for the day, he believed for some time that it had been that natural force that had caused the castle fire.

A little stage had been constructed on the battlefield for Scott's execution. People had started crowding around it since the night before, claiming the best spots to watch the Rebel King's head fall. They didn't move despite the icy drizzle. Stiles didn't want to be there, but he was going to be there. Scott should see a familiar face. He nevertheless waited until the last minute to get moving.

He was cold, shivering, and completely uninspired to say a word to Isaac when he drew up next to him. "Bad day to be a groundling," the viscount muttered, eyeing the masses of commoners. Stiles sighed, but Isaac continued to muse. "Of course, it's always a bad day for them, poor bastards."

"Isaac, you picked a fucking awful time to talk about who is and isn't lucky," Stiles snapped.

The viscount looked at him like a boy would, with wide eyes. The expression faded as he slipped into bleakness of the day. "Yeah. Yeah, God, I guess you're right."

"Yeah," Stiles agreed, looking nowhere in particular.

They stayed silent until Derek mounted the stage, followed by a priest and a squad of guards. The people surged towards him, calling out their support in wild cheers, as if they weren't all soaked to the bone in the middle of winter. Or perhaps they just scented blood.

Derek was wearing deep red velvet trimmed in gold and his crown shone brighter than the sun in the blank grey clouds. He didn't seem to notice the weather as he held his hand out over the crowd. "My people!" He addressed them in a booming voice trained to carry over the screams and clashes of battle. "My name is Derek Hale, and I am the absolute monarch of this land!"

More cheers, especially when he turned their attention to the sodden figure being escorted on to the stage. Stiles' heart jolted in pity. "Isaac," he started, voice panicky, "I'm so sorry."

"What?" Isaac said faintly, as Derek drew his sword to another roar from the crowd.

The king was speaking. "This is Scott McCall, who betrayed me when he became an imposter to the throne."

"I thought—" began Isaac.

"No," Stiles croaked, unable to take his eyes off of his friend dropping to his knees and adjusting his neck and chin on the block.

"But I thought you and the king were—"

Stiles' head whipped around. "We aren't anything, Isaac!" he shouted, feeling a thousand tremors shaking in his voice.

And then Derek was raising his sword above Scott's neck. "For that, he deserves, under this country's law and under the law of Heaven itself, to die!"

In that last moment, Stiles could no longer support it, and his eyes squeezed shut. "Shit, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he thought desperately as the crowd cried out.

Isaac had grabbed his wrist and was shaking him. "Look!" he hissed. "Stiles, look!"

Horrified, Stiles opened his eyes. The sword was plunged into the wood, hard enough that it was stuck upright. Derek was shouting over a stunned silence. "I spare his life, not for his actions, nor his blood, nor out of any love for him, but because I can and will grant clemency. There will be no more fighting." Stiles watched, stunned, his heart large and hot in his chest, as he left the stage.

The court reinstalled itself in Beacon Hills. Not in the castle, of course, but in the best residences of the sorriest merchants and nobles who had not caused as much of a fuss during the Argent occupation as they should have. Scott was long gone. So were his wife and a number of his in-laws, including Gerard Argent. Stiles had been surprised to hear that the king's mercy had extended that far. He supposed that Lord Gerard's burgeoning illness didn't make him much of a threat, not for much longer anyway.

But this was all speculation. Derek hadn't said a word to Stiles in weeks, although Stiles had certainly said many to him. Or tried to, at least. Stiles had found the king's tent barred to him, when he had left the not-execution with his heart in his throat, intent on finding Derek. He wouldn't grant an audience. In the city, his doors and windows were firmly locked and guarded day and night. His guards would also physically remove Stiles from his path. It hadn't come to bruises yet, but he was sure it would soon if Stiles couldn't come with any better ideas, and fast. He had succeeded only in slipping notes under the king's door; nothing complicated, just a plea to see him and say thank you in person. They had gotten no response, not even a flat 'no.' After his fifth such note, Stiles gave up.

Then he hit jackpot. He learned from a guard, who just happened to speak a little too loudly when Stiles just happened to have been dropping from the eaves, when and where the king took his falcon on Thursday mornings. And there was a bonus: he went alone.

Thursday morning, before sunup, he walked the long way to the copse of trees by the pond where Derek's falcon was invested in reducing the local duck population. Not many people came that way, which was probably why the king liked it so much.

Again, that was only so much speculation though. Stiles was beginning to doubt that he had ever really known the man at all. Not that it mattered: he was dealing with not the man but the king.

He didn't have to wait long before Derek cantered up on his dark steed with a huge bird perched on his arm. He looked beautiful, in his element, and Stiles let himself watch for a bit as the king gently removed the hood. He stroked the falcon's black freckled plumage as its head rotated sharply left and right, taking stock of its surroundings. Then he lifted his arm and sent the predator into the silver morning mists.

Stiles didn't want to wait around for it to strike a duck in midair and snap its neck. He didn't want to be frightened before he even started by the omen or the symbolism or whatever. He stood up slowly and went to the king. "Good morning, Your Majesty."

"Good morning, Baron Stilinski." He glanced over again with a scowl. "I didn't see any horse tracks this way."

Stiles pretended to watch the bird swoop and dive over its prey. "Yeah, I walked."

"You walked all the way here?" Derek repeated.

Stiles sucked in ruefully, drawing his shoulders up high. "You haven't exactly made life easy for me."

"I didn't want you to thank me," the king countered.

"Well, why do it then?"

The falcon collided with a drake, and both crashed to the ground, one alive and one dead. The bird waited for its master, who tapped his heels against his horse's belly. "I did it for our sakes, Stiles. Yours, mine, everyone's."

Stiles was too flabbergasted to do anything but watch as Derek rewarded the falcon with a bit of meat. Then he slung the duck in a saddlebag, replaced the bird's hood and climbed back on his horse with the bird quiet on his arm. He kicked his horse into a gallop, thundering towards Stiles. He jumped out of the king's way in the nick of time. Stiles cursed, sneezing on the kicked-up dust, and picked up a rock. He flung it after the king, bellowing, "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

The rock arced harmlessly to the ground, but Derek had apparently still been within hearing distance. He did a volte-face and charged back, reining in right before running Stiles over. "Wrong with _me_?!" he shouted, glaring down at him. "Me? What's wrong with _you_?!"

Stiles picked his jaw up off the ground. "Oh no, no, no, you first!"

Derek was shaking his head. "No, no, no, _you_ first," he said. "I've made it crystal fucking clear, Stiles, that I want you to leave me alone. I want everyone to just leave me alone!"

"WHY?" screamed Stiles, so loudly that the ducks took off in a clamor from the pond, and even the falcon's wings flapped a few times in agitation.

Derek didn't notice. "Because I'm the king! Do you know what that means? Clearly, you don't! No one does! It means there's only one of me, just one, no one else, like there's one God, who is the only thing bigger in the world than me. You can't understand me anymore than I can understand him."

Stiles spoke quietly. "I disagree."

Derek looked down at him with heavy eyes, as if he were very tired. "It's a fact, Stiles, not an opinion. You can't disagree."

"Well, I disagree about that too then, Your Majesty."

"If it were some other time or place maybe, if we were different people—"

Stiles stepped closer to the horse to cut him off. "I've said this like a hundred times, and you haven't listened, but I guess I'm going to keep saying it until you get it. _I'm not going anywhere_." He met Derek's gaze and had the strangest, briefest sensation that he was addressing the falcon or some other wild beast. The animal filtered into the green depths, replaced with a human intelligence.

Derek drew his free hand over his face. He looked up and then back to consider his spymaster. "You really didn't bring a horse?"

"I really didn't, My King."

Derek reached a hand down to him. "I'll give you a ride back."

Stiles accepted the lift. He wrapped his arms around his king's waist and held on tight as their horse took them home. "Hey," he said directly into Derek's ear. "I'm still expecting an apology, by the way." A frustrated silence followed as the king struggled inarticulately. Stiles swallowed. "Words are tough, I know, alright; I'll give you until the end of the month."

"No, I am sorry."

Stiles blinked. "You— really?"

"Yes," replied Derek in the kind of voice Stiles couldn't disbelieve.

"Well. That's, that's good. Wow. Thank you."

Derek rolled his shoulders in a way that meant he wanted to say more, but 'yes' would have to do. Stiles lasted about one minute before he had to ask, "So does this mean I get to touch your penis again?"

The tension rushed from Derek's body. "Shut up, Stiles."

Stiles hid his grin by pressing his lips between Derek's shoulder blades in a secret kiss. All in good time. It's not like he was going anywhere.

Some things never change, and Stiles would forever more tumble into Derek's bedroom than properly walk. Thankfully, the king was by his side to drag him back up to his feet. Stiles took the opportunity to toss his arms around Derek's neck. "My King," he babbled happily, sucking noisy kisses onto his neck. The king got the door closed behind them with his heel.

Stiles felt warm and golden and gloriously drunk. He'd been swimming for the past few days in an endless river of wine— not to mention engorged on more food than he'd ever eaten before. It was a hell of a party, thrown in Derek's honor by some very sorry Argents. Lord Christopher might not have been the obsequious kind, but the family was large enough to have lesser cousins ready to put their backs into groveling. The king was reshuffling the deck of cards that was his court, and there were titles to be won or lost.

The Marquis Stilinski was happy. Derek's body enveloped him, trapping him down against a soft featherbed. "I'll always be here," he said, punctuating each phrase with a kiss. "You marry some beautiful lady," kiss, "I'll be here. You have a pack of princelings parading about," kiss, "I'll be here. You're old and crotchety— more crotchety—" Stiles could feel Derek's rumbling chuckle under his lips and against his chest. "And I'll be here."

The words were hardly out of his mouth before Derek swooped in, taking his lips and his tongue, his whole mouth, as his own until each tasted of the other. "My own Hephaistion," Derek murmured, and it was moments like these where Stiles heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest on wings of pure joy. Derek never said so, and probably never would, but he loved him. Derek spoke in actions, with his whole body instead of just his lips, and Stiles would never strain his nature by asking for words when he already understood perfectly.

"Your Ganymede, your Patroclus, your Alcibiades," Stiles replied, grinning sweetly. They were so close that their noses were touching, and it was so easy, so wonderfully easy, to bring their lips back together.

Derek's hand slipped down between them to get their trousers off. He murmured in a special voice, deep and slow, that Stiles guarded jealously, "Socrates and Alcibiades never did what we are about to do."

Stiles' eyebrows raised in a teasing mockery of his king's favorite expression. "Umm, who here is shooting for historical accuracy?"

This wasn't their first time, and the king even had a jar of oil ready by the bedside that his spymaster had rustled up from God-only-knew-what den of iniquity. Stiles knew just how to spread himself beneath Derek, how to open himself to his cock and where to grip the tensing muscles of his lithe body. Stiles' head was swimming in his wine, and the warm solid man rocking into him disintegrated into flashing visions of captured movement. He clutched Derek tighter to remind himself of why he was shivering and moaning with electricity dancing up his spine. He was noisy, howling the king's name— he couldn't help it when he felt the rush of being the sole object of Derek's attention, his desire.

Stiles came before Derek did, but it wasn't long before the king collapsed on top of him, totally spent. He lay there, Stiles' favorite blanket, eyelids already fluttering closed. Stiles gathered his arms around him, pulling him up so that his weight was more comfortably distributed on his chest. He carded his fingers through the dark hair that was damp at the temples from sweat. Derek liked that, he always fell asleep faster with Stiles there to love him. And Stiles always slept better when the king was with him, safe and sound. It was all he'd ever wanted.

Fin

Author's Note: This story was written on four continents, between six countries and thirteen cities. More precisely, it was written on some fucking long plane rides. It kept me grounded. My thanks go to beta Krista for existing. Thanks also to Megan Whalen Turner for her incomparable writing, particularly the book _The King of Attolia_, which is this fic's hero. Please feel at liberty to share your thoughts and feelings. Or gloat if you spotted any allusions. I welcome your comments and criticism.


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